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Hello Games Received Death Threats Over 'No Man's Sky' (theguardian.com)
The Guardian revisits the disastrous 2016 launch of the massive open-universe videogame No Man's Sky, in a new interview with company director Sean Murray:
"I've never liked talking to the press. I didn't enjoy it when I had to do it, and when I did it, I was naive and overly excited about my game. There are a lot of things around launch that I regret, or that I would do differently." He is reluctant to relive the particulars of what happened in the weeks and months following No Man's Sky's release in August 2016 ("I find it really personal, and I don't have any advice for dealing with it," he says), but it involved death threats, bomb threats sent to the studio and harassment of people who worked at Hello Games on a frightening scale. They were in regular contact with Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan police... "I remember getting a death threat about the fact that there were butterflies in our original trailer, and you could see them as you walked past them, but there weren't any butterflies in the launch game. I remember thinking to myself: 'Maybe when you're sending a death threat about butterflies in a game, you might be the bad guy....'"
Despite the controversy, No Man's Sky sold extremely well, and plenty of its players have stuck by it. A year after release, when Hello Games released the Atlas Rises update, about a million people showed up to play, and the average playtime was 45 hours.... It is still recognisable as the lonely, abstractly beautiful space-exploration game I played in 2016, but three big updates have added a lot more. It is now definitely a better game, with much more to do and a clearer structure... Now you can also construct bases, drive around in vehicles and -- as of next week -- invite other players to explore with you, in groups of four. You can crew a freighter together, or colonise a planet with ever-expanding constructions.
"You are still a tiny speck in an infinite universe," writes the Guardian. "it's just that now, you have some company." Murray describes it as a "Star Trek away team vibe."
In another interview, Murray concedes that during the five years they'd spent in development, "We talked about the game way earlier than we should have talked about the game.... "
Despite the controversy, No Man's Sky sold extremely well, and plenty of its players have stuck by it. A year after release, when Hello Games released the Atlas Rises update, about a million people showed up to play, and the average playtime was 45 hours.... It is still recognisable as the lonely, abstractly beautiful space-exploration game I played in 2016, but three big updates have added a lot more. It is now definitely a better game, with much more to do and a clearer structure... Now you can also construct bases, drive around in vehicles and -- as of next week -- invite other players to explore with you, in groups of four. You can crew a freighter together, or colonise a planet with ever-expanding constructions.
"You are still a tiny speck in an infinite universe," writes the Guardian. "it's just that now, you have some company." Murray describes it as a "Star Trek away team vibe."
In another interview, Murray concedes that during the five years they'd spent in development, "We talked about the game way earlier than we should have talked about the game.... "
Internet threats are not credible.
Internet threats are not credible.
And yet so long as we effectively do nothing about them, they will continue. Explicit threats of physical harm should be at least ticketed.
I assumed it was about the horridly racist & misogynistic title. And it would have been totally justified too!
(AmiMoJo is up on blocks)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just because they lied and stole at such a massive scale does not give anyone the right to make death threats. They should be threating them with legal action not violence. I canâ(TM)t believe however, that this author thinks that just because people used the crap they purchased that things are ok. The game still isnâ(TM)t at the point where they promised. Thatâ(TM)s the developers fault. These people used Amazon, Walmart and Target as a kickstarter platform. Talk about death threats, but donâ(TM)t paint them as innocent of any crime.
I bought digitally and Sony wouldn't allow me to return the game based on false advertising. A chargeback would've gotten my account suspended. I just pirate everything now.
1. I've heard that purely statistically, there are about 5000 people in this planet, that, no matter what it is about, have the means and the will to kill you for it at any given time. More if it's publicly available for longer. (Which is precisely why privacy from permanent recordings is so important.)
2. Somebody saying they will kill you... even when describing it in great detail... very rarely leads to somebody actually doing it. In fact, for most people, it provides a form of relief that weakens their need to actually do something. Like slacktivism. People who truly want to kill you, usually are more the quiet type and will not exactly go blaring it out.
3. I am not surprised at all that this is the backlash. The developers have been massive dicks on a level usually reserved for bosses of global Fortune 500 corporations, who can ruin an entire continent's beach ecosystem and get away with publicly say they are sorry* that they wete caught*. (Not about the harm they caused.)
Conclusion: Rattle on the cages of 50 million animals like an asshole, and there is bound to be some tigers, jumping at you to eat your head. That's called natural selection, and it is supposed to work that way.
Avoid getting death threats in the first place by not deceiving the public about the completeness of your game.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Promising a golden goose and delivering a badly-painted dog turd is going to piss a good number of people off.
People who murder do not usually announce it.
Threats are a form of venting. See them as an early warning system to maybe be less of a dick.
Plug that hole, and the pressure will build up. Some people will end up murdering, who otherwise wouldn't.
In the case of it being a problem on the threatener's side, he would have to find what originally caused this trigger, and re-train those mental connections to be more separated from that past.
But in this case, it looks more like said butterflies were the straw that broke the camel's back, after years of the developers being complete dicks in very thin innocent clothing that only the most hopeless blackeyers would still not see through.
....to be scammed out of money by marketing promises that the company knows will never happen. It is fraud, but there is no recourse because you can't get a refund.
I knew it would be a giant failure solely based on the fact that it was a console space sim.
Space sim has evolved beyond the capacity of stagnant console controllers, and the whole fanbase is housed on the PC. Flight Stick + Keyboard is the way to go.
I'd have to strip X3 Terran Conflict's gameplay mechanics by a good half to make it playable on consoles and i'd still have response time problems and miss-click galore by fitting the rest with modifiers (modifiers are complete crap as an input method). Hell, even an old 1990's game like Tie Fighter can't be played on even modern console controllers without castrating it.
It's simply one of those genres that have transcended consoles which automatically get a "sub-par" label if they are associated with consoles.
No, shit. Sean you're still a dumpster fire. Fuck off.
But before you cry too much, remember that these are the same devs who lied repeatedly about the game being multiplayer and various other features in the game.
They basically released a 10 to 20 dollar indy game for $60.
They deserved some online trolling.
Of course if you ask a criminal if he agrees that you got ripped off and to give you your money back, he will say no. What did you expect. ^^
I don't know how it is in the US, but here in Germany, you do not ask. You send them a letter from your lawyer that they did not sell you what they told you you would get, and hence they better do, or give you your money back. In 14 days. And you reserve the right to sue for additional damages (deficienc compensation, that kind of stuff).
A contract is between two equal partners. If they disagree, a judge will decide.
I know a guy who's been working on an assembler for more than 35 years. A 6502 assembler. I called it done 35 years ago, but nooooo, "not yet", he says.
Its a damn game you dribbling idiot kid. Even if they advertised it as immersive photorealistic 3D and it ended up as a copy of space invaders it wouldn't warrant death threats. Get out of your parents basement and get a fucking sense of perspective for your own good as well as everyone else.
... formulaic shit.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Don't go unmasked into a small town, pickpocket the small town, and not leave that small town.
They lied to everyone and ripped people off. Bad things happen to scammers.
Judging by the sudden uptick in No Man's Sky articles here and elsewhere (such as the Amiga-rendered graphics which I won't link to, because I don't want to give additional publicity), I'm guessing that two years later, NMS is starting to become somewhat close to the game which was advertised, instead of the widely documented, I guess can you call it a "bait and switch" catastrophe which was shipped? Not really, a bait and switch in the traditional sense, but it's clear they didn't deliver what they advertised. I guess this is all so that we all remember the game and go "sure, I guess it's worth 20 bucks now"? Gotta recoup those losses.
Despite the controversy, No Man's Sky sold extremely well, and plenty of its players have stuck by it.
That is a cute, Guardian. Are you sure it is not that there was a controversy BECAUSE No Man’s Sky sold extremely well (on preorders based upon the lies that this piece of human garbage perpetrated for years before the release). Also, “stuck buy it”, as seen by the glowing reviews it received upon release. I don’t know who is more full of crap at this point, Sean or the author.
They are going to hide behind a few idiots who threatened, playing the victim in order to divert accusations made against their game.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Go make a sandwich for your hotwife's black buck.
Here in Germany, the one receiving the letter has to foot the bill. Unless he disagrees and refuses to pay. In which case it goes in front of a court. (Where the cost can go to him too, or be split.)
Yes, this is also a huge problem, since any asshole lawyer can look for something like a missing imprint on your website or a missing privacy policy (which are required by law), write you a cease and desist, and demand e.g. 500 EUR for the effort.
There were whole lawer companies doing nothing else all day. Esp together with the protectinm racket scheme of the Content Mafia this became quite annoying. (Although if you just didn't pay, nothing further happened, since they could not have proof and not become an accomplice at the same time.:)
In this case, that is of course pretty useful. :)
First, ask yourself: Free from what?
From everything? Then nothing but pure randomness would be left to base the decision on.
What is usually meant, is freedom from the influence of other individuals.
But in reality, that is never the case, unless you were already born and lived your whole life without contact with anything human.
In reality, our brains are machines, that bias input based on all previous input, while imprinting it to alter the bias on future input. Apart from the genetic and epigenetic basis, and physical entivonmental influences (from weather over poisons to food), that's it.
And the vast majority of that input is information from other people ("sources",media,friends,...) nowadays, and it probably always was that way.
Which is not even bad. Imagine having to check everything for yourself. Nobody checks for himself if jumping off a skyscraper will kill you. Our behavior in that regard is solely based on hearsay. (And even the best study, is still just hearsay *to you*, unless you replicate it yourself.)
But "free will" certainly is a very bad meme, and must be considered a harmful delusion. Everything still is fine, and just the same, without it.
For a procedurally generated open world game which is new through every playthrough people abandoned it incredibly quickly. The Atlas Rises saw a sudden uptick in gamers followed by an even sharper drop. Only a few months after launch the number of players ranged between the hundreds and very low thousands. It was a colossal bomb.
Idiots give each other death threats for all sorts of low level irrelevant bullshit. It's usually juvenile venting. But given what was promised and what was shipped I'm surprised that he didn't actually receive a pipebomb in the mail.
My point would be that their numbers are still rising steadily. There's even a spreadsheet that will give you some more insights by providing a time scale. https://docs.google.com/spread... I mean sure, if you don't give refunds there's no other way than up, hence their curve must by definition be steady, but we should be able to see at least some stagnation there if the hypothesis of my parent was universally applicable. However, instead of that we see a nearly constant slope with some jumps (due to special events). If you scroll a bit lower you'll be able to see a similar trend in the number of pledges.
It appears like no matter what, there will always be a significant influx of new people who are happily buying into the idea, ignoring all criticism and empirical evidence from other, less ambitious projects, that is already out there on the internet.
Trump hangs for treason either way, enjoy being a faggot meanwhile I guess. In the cell, from the gallows, it doesn't matter. He'll hang. His bitch beta traitor sons will hang. His daughter will hang herself. No more shark week. Sad!
misogynistic = anti-women
misandrist = anti-man
"No *Man's* Sky" = misandrist hate!
The fan boys are just that... boys. NMS is for men and women who love the idea of space exploration.
As an adult (35 year-old) AAA developer who has worked on some of the best rated space games of all time... Let me tell you, No Man's Sky is a treasure. It's a game-making achievement. I am a game dev, and I studied NMS deeply. These tools and tricks have existed for only about 15 years and never in the same product before to such a high quality.
There's not very much that hits my quality bar, but I put at least 40 hours in. That means, it's an immense accomplishment for Hello games.
The juvenile can cry all day about 'promises'. It doesn't make a difference. What was delivered is pure gold.
I stopped a long time ago. I've been burned one too many times. You want to sell me a game, you better have reviews (from actual reviewers rather than paid mouthpieces) to convince me. Yes, that means I play the game a week or two later, but I avoid duds like that.
Frankly, far too often we've seen games, even from formerly reputable studios, fall short of their promises. Franchises that used to be a guaranteed feast were turned into bland and boring cheap shots. No thanks. Prove that you delivered, and then I'll buy. Especially if you call no backsies by default.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
sean shitface murray and his shit eating grin, his employees and every single family and kid should have been exterminated after the scam he pulled
even with steam refunds he managed to sell more than a million on pc, imagine consoletards without refunds
sean death should have been painful and slow