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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Nice video explaining No Man Sky’s evolution: https://youtu.be/uzvxn6l50co

Anyone who has worked in software knows the difference between expectations/projections and real life. Everything takes 10x longer once you dig into the details. So it’s great to see a gaming company able to adapt and continually release through those down moments and eventually produce something great.

It makes you wonder how much better other games could be if they took an incremental approach and continually expanded the world available to users.

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For me it's a very conflicted project. All they've done since release has been admirable, and NMS is now a good game well-worth the fee. Thing is, most of that work should've been done before release, and is it right to commend a company for marketing creme-filled donuts and then sending us the creme in the mail eighteen months later? Even so, I would've said yes it is, except for one issue: they still refuse to apologize for deliberately lying to us about launch features. They deflect, they say they got too excited, too ambitious. What they don't do is admit the moral failure inherent in marketing features they hadn't even begun adding to the code base. They didn't even start to try until after they got caught lying and they still refuse to admit it.

But when it’s Sony co-marketing can you really blame them?

It was their first time ever getting that kind of attention from a publisher and they screwed it up. That’s how I’ve interpreted it at least.

Yes, you can, and if we don't hold this kind of behavior accountable it will keep happening.

No, no. I mean who should you hold accountable. I'd rather hold Sony's marketing, than a bunch of developers who finally got their shot.

Like it's understandable to me that a small software team would sell their big shot as something huge. It's the job of a publisher like Sony to keep consumers' expectations in check.

Hold the right people accountable lest it will also keep happening.

I do agree that it would be unfair to only hold the small indy company accountable - but both they and Sony deserve criticism in their own way

So many companies think they can pull a fast one and ignore/downplay mistakes with PR speak which is so stupid in 2019.

Information can’t be controlled, people aren’t stupid, and honesty goes a lot further to regain respect and patience... than some bullshit positive spin.

Sadly entrepreneurs and the business community cares more about pushing persuasion and clever tactics than merely being human and honest to your customers.

So agreed the iterative approach is excellent and dedication after getting panned in reviews is rare and should be encouraged... but their communication? Not so much.

I didn't get No Man's Sky until this August when they released the VR version. I got it on sale fully expecting to spent only 20 minutes with it. I just wanted to see it in VR. I ended up spending 20 hrs. I felt like a little kid pretending to be in space. It was awesome. About 15hrs in I tried non-VR for a moment. Couldn't take it. There are many things I'd change about the game but being in space in VR was amazing.

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