Sean Murray On No Man's Sky Beyond And Next-Gen Consoles

Game Informer: "We spoke with Hello Games' Sean Murray about why he keeps working on No Man's Sky and his thoughts on Stadia."

[Alek83]

I can't say this enough. This game is my biggest surprise after also being my biggest disappointment.

I hated it so much that I got a refund, only to re-buy it after the story update hit because people were saying it turned into a great game. No regrets so far after close to 300 hours of play.

The turnaround NMS had gives me hope that eventually Anthem will do the same thing.

If you have not played since the disastrous launch, you owe it to yourself to try the game again. It can be bought for around $10 and had tons of free content, DLC, and updates to make it pretty damn dope.

[porkChop]

The turnaround for this game was really amazing. We don't see that kind of thing very often.

[Alek83]

I have never seen anything like it before. If you have any examples, Id love to read up on them. This seemed like a fluke, but I hope other companies learn from this.

[Sono421]

It really was an amazing turn around, and i'm glad it was! On the flip side though.. I don't want this to become a trend.. cough Anthem cough Destiny COUGH COUGH.

Anyway I feel like GameInformer is one of the few good gaming sites left, the rest make idiotic clickbait polarizing articles just for clicks, but game informer sticks to being... well informative. Although i'll admit I could be wrong, maybe they do but I just haven't seen them, but every time I see GameInformer.. it's good stuff.

[rdgneoz3]

"We don't see that kind of thing very often"

Only times I've seen it are FFXIV Reborn and NMS. FFXIV when it first released was complete crap and they admitted fault, took their time, and fixed it. Now it's going strong and has another expansion coming out in the summer.

[porkChop]

Yeah, FFXIV is the only other I remember that was on this scale.

[crazyCoconuts]

Any chance they could grow this to something that approaches Minecraft popularity some day?

[UltraNova]

I m sure they've thought about this. A game of Mincraft's scale needs a huge team to support it properly. Currently, Hello Games employs 14 people. You can see as to why this might be difficult for the time being.

They will continue supporting the game with the VR release this summer (NMS VR will become THE biggest VR selling point) and forward by porting it to next gen consoles and stream services.

[Chaosdreams]

What helped is that everything has been given to the gamers for free. Anthem, if it ever improves, will still flaunt its microtransaction nonsense and be held back by it.

[Alek83]

Good point.

[LoveSpuds]

Driveclub is another example of a game with a huge amount of hype which floundered at launch, only to be turned into a fantastic game down the line.

[Alek83]

I'm going to have to check that out. I heard some bad word of mouth about it ages ago.
Any must have content or bundle I should grab?

[rainslacker]

Driveclub got panned for having issues on lauch, even though the content promised was actually there. Not exactly the same situation. Because of that though, the season pass I think became much better, giving the player a lot more content.

[Srhalo]

The sad thing is I truly believe that Sean never intended to mislead anyone. He was just a small developer thrown into a situation that was way bigger than he knew how to handle.

He was a guy with a small team of friends that he just wanted to see keep their jobs and get paid.

[Dizzy11523]

This game is awesome. I approve.

[mastershredder]

I’ll be looking to next gen developers without these bad habitts and trends set by Sean and his team. Seriosuly suck it Hello Games.

If you pay someone to build a house and they hand over the keys to something half built and leaky, you’d flip your shit. That is EXACTLY what they did. And from a development standpoint it is a HUGE no-no in this day and age, but if you like the ‘Keep promissing and kinda deliver years later’ koolade and crumby developers that serve it, Enjoy!

[Nacho_Z]

More like you bought a house without seeing it first (reading a review) but if you had you'd know what you were in for before you handed over any money.

[Muzikguy]

How about all the ones that keep promising and don't ever deliver?

[NXFather]

Boiinnggg.

[rainslacker]

Murray was far from the first person to set the trend that you speak of. People complained about the same things last gen from Activision, Ubisoft, and EA. I don't want to call out MS because I know it'll bring on the hate, which isn't my intent, but Peter Molyneux did the same thing across three fable games, and got called out on every one of them, but nowhere near the level that Murray received. Molyneux continued to do that after he left MS, up to the point where he didn't even try to follow through on the promise that was delivered to that one lucky player of his tapping block "game". The difference between Murray and those publishers though, is that i don't think Murray maliciously intended to deceive the consumer, he just didn't really know how to express what he was saying, which led to a lot of miscommunications. The other publishers made it a habit to actively mislead the consumer by leaving out information, or over-promising.

[Sirk7x]

I think there was a point, where they HAD to deliver a product, or else run out of money. The ideas and things they were working on were most likely not able to be implemented in the time they had. It's unfortunate, but at least with the money they've made on the game, they're continuing to update and improve it for free. That definitely does well by the fans of NMS and will do well for the company in the future.

[dumahim]

Oh, now here's someone I really want to listen to. /popcorn

[X-Alchemist]

Really good interview, Sean seems to have learnt a lot since launch.

[Godmars290]

Is anyone going to take what this man has to say seriously?

[gam3r_4_lif3]

Yes

[rainslacker]

Yes. Because he seems to have learned how to temper what he says to not over promise, or at least express himself in a way that is more indicative of what he's trying to do.

[Godmars290]

At least until he's put in front of national TV anyway.

[rainslacker]

So, what exactly has he promised and not delivered since the launch of the game?

He was held accountable to what he said in the most harsh way possible. Something we don't even see directed with as much vitriol as we do for companies that do it on a consistent basis for God knows how long now.

The man made mistakes, I don't think he meant to make those mistakes. I don't think he meant to deceive. He seemed genuine with his intent, but misguided in his ability to express himself.

Do we hold him accountable forever, when he's done everything possible to make up for it, and even acknowledged those mistakes?