Of course, there’s another round of “aren’t gamers just the worst” articles from — who else? — video game journalists. The people who believe that only they and their pinko readers can respectably enjoy the medium.
This time the hand wringing centers around gamers demands for refunds following the colossal disappointment of No Man’s Sky, the massively hyped space explorer game. Articles were published giving false information that some retailers would provide special exceptions for No Man’s Sky returns, even after dozens of hours of gameplay. But what’s important to consider is the desire for refunds is not simply about the game itself, but the game that was promised.
There are dozens of examples of features the game’s head developer Sean Murray emphatically stated would be in the game, that were sorely missing at launch date. The game that finally launched at $60 (after delays), but played more like a $20 walking simulator, with bonus rock shooting features with mindless deformed creatures as set dressing. Not to mention the game was incredibly buggy on the PC version, virtually unplayable until a later patch.
But that’s just my opinion. Many people enjoyed the final product, but it still is not the game we were promised.
An ex-Sony director who helped secure No Man’s Sky as a Playstation exclusive, took it upon himself to pour fuel on the fire and call the refunders thieves.
If you’re getting a refund after playing a game for 50 hours you’re a thief.
— Shahid Kamal Ahmad (@shahidkamal) August 28, 2016
The Twitter outrage was swift and exacting. Ahmad certainly received unwarranted harassment on Twitter, yet the comment was unnecessarily dismissive towards gamers who felt they were lied to (which they were).
The argument boils down to the sandwich at the restaurant analogy. Ahmad essentially believes that gamers simply are trying to return a sandwich they already ate, but still the sandwich they ordered. But in reality, No Man’s Sky was more like ordering a BLT and getting a soggy lettuce and tomato sandwich instead. We ate most of the sandwich as the restaurant poured a little bacon grease on the lettuce, tricking our senses into believing we got what we ordered. The refunds are entirely justified.
Polygon’s Ben Kuchera also stepped in to piss on gamers some more. “No Man’s Sky’s story is being written by its haters,” he wrote. The piece boils the negative reaction down to a few incidents of online harassment, dismissing the more widespread measured disappointment.
He attempted to frame the game as a success based on the large amount of users who were initially playing the game and said that the significant drop in active players was no big deal.
Yes, the game is technically a success on financial terms. It cost little to make as the developer team was tiny, the game was created based on a possibly stolen algorithm and sold a bazzillion copies. But those copies were sold on a fantastical fabrication.
Yes, Sean Murray is laughing all the way to the bank, but that doesn’t mean gamers will trust a word he says during the development of his next game. Murray is the new Peter Molyneux, the Lionshead game developer who was notorious for making promises he couldn’t deliver.
Molyneux eventually promised to never speak to the press again, knowing he couldn’t help himself talk up the game that was in his head, not the game that existed in the physical world. Maybe Murray should follow suit, as he proved more adept at weaving a brilliant tale of what No Man’s Sky could be, rather than producing a great game in its own right.
“Entitled” is a hackneyed label foisted on gamers by certain members of the media. But in reality gamers are a group of people with high expectations that constantly get taken advantage of. They routinely get sold incomplete games and are expected to buy the rest as DLC (Star Wars: Battlefront). They are served deceptive trailers and demos which lie about graphics and gameplay (Aliens: Colonial Marines). And they are expected to accept that year after year $60 games get less substantive and more exploitative.
There’s a huge difference between entitlement and righteous indignation. Journalists and developers need to learn the difference.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks.
