With No Man’s Sky releasing this last week we enter the marmite period of game launch (some hate it, some love it). Once again many people stumble with the “It’s not the game I ( was looking for/ expected it to be/ was lead to believe i would get)” then appear the demands on game makers to amend/change/fix those elements that someone doesn’t like.
It’s strange as asking for change can vary depending on the complexicities involved. For example returning a meal as it was served cold is within the realms of acceptable demands since you expect a certain level of quality. However shouting that you didn’t like the ending/cast/ art direction of a film isn’t going to achieve anything since it’s pretty much set in stone, maybe the director’s cut maybe extended or have alternative ends, but generally you achieve nothing.
It’s peculiar how games tend to face a very different treatment. That’s not saying devs shouldn’t fix faults or address issues, but demanding more of developers, post release seems unfair, especially when the production time on games can be equal or greater than many large film productions.
Clearing up confusion
It’s clear to see that many people who thought the game was going to be something different, were they misinformed or not paying attention?
This couldn’t have been clearer in the following tweet that was posted during launch week:
To be super clear – No Man's Sky is not a multiplayer game. Please don't go in looking for that experience.
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) August 8, 2016
There are many questions:
- Did players make an assumption?
- Is the single player game a dying breed these days?
- Was there an element of lost in translation?
I have not been following the games development, as in I knew NOTHING about the game until this week. My perception is that the game launch maybe buggy a little, just like any other title. The gameplay I had watched as been fun and those playing it haven’t complained about much besides those common issues.
I haven’t bought the game myself, but I’m sorely tempted to use my Humble discount to pick up the game for the 10% off and 10% to a charity of my choice but I have so many titles in my Steam backlog it’s becoming harder to justify new titles.
“Did players make an assumption?
Is the single player game a dying breed these days?”
I think they absolutely made assumptions about what the game was going to be. And that certainly falls under ‘buyer beware’ territory. I also don’t think the devs made it clear what it was, either, which led people to think that it was more like Ark or, heck, Minecraft than it really was.
But the single player game absolutely is a dying breed, too. From AAA studios we’ve come to expect multiplayer, or multiplayer is tacked onto a single player (even if it doesn’t make sense). From indie studios is where the main source of single players are coming from now (and yet they’ll still make decent multiplayer, too). To see a huge game release and to not have any multiplayer is… well, it’s a rarity.