Taking the Long-term View

One year ago the much-anticipated video game ‘No Man’s Sky’ was released but it did not deliver on many of the features it had promised and subsequently faced a big backlash from many disappointed buyers.

My brother was not one of the disappointed buyers and rather than take the short-sighted, reactionary view, decided to give it a chance.

This week Wired’s Julie Muncy writes to let us know the game is still here and worth exploring:

“Atlas Rises” is the third update since the game’s release, and it feels fundamentally different. It adds a few things players have griped about for ages, like the ability to fly close to the ground or summon your ship from anywhere, but it is ambitious enough be more than a sop to the few faithful fans. By adding 30 hours of story to the game, the update fleshes out a more complex narrative. By allowing players to communicate with others in their vicinity, it lays a foundation for cooperative play in the future. The patch notes drone on and on—new quest system, improved trade, more robust visual interfaces—but taken together they take on a new shape. Hello Games makes an overture to everyone who wrote off the game a week after launch. No Man’s Sky is still here, the update says, and it is a growing thing. Hello Games would prefer you not abandon it so quickly.

I’m happy to hear the game is still evolving and getting better, but I still contend under-promising and over-delivering would still have been a better route to take.

Categories:

Games

“…if progress is ever to be made, some opportunities and discoveries will be inconceivable in advance”

My brother Mark wrote an essay on current uproar over ‘No Man’s Sky’. He, like many others, bought the game, but he’s not angry like them.

He makes a distinction between buying something that is and investing in what something can become and draws a great comparison to one of his (and my) favorite scenes from Mad Men:

In my favorite scene of Mad Men, head honcho Don Draper gets into an argument with junior copywriter Peggy Olson in his office after hours. She delivered work the client loved, and while she got paid she never received acknowledgement of her role in the win. With tears in her eyes she finally breaks down and reminds Don she didn’t even get a ‘thank you,’ to which he quickly shouts, “That’s what the money’s for!” You see, Don uses money as a reward, not as encouragement. He’s not an investor in good creative, he’s a consumer of it. He pays for results, not future potential. I think the disappointment we’re seeing among many buyers of No Man’s Sky comes from the fact that what they received is not what they thought they paid for. And perhaps many of those who are content with their purchase see their money more as support for what No Man’s Sky pursued and is possibly becoming, and are enjoying their purchase for what it is and not what they thought it would be.

I see both sides on this. I understand the disappointment, but I also know what to expect by someone who has both backed and also created projects on Kickstarter.

What I would like to see change is more effort on the part of project creators to manage expectations.

Did anything bad ever come from under-promising and over-delivering?

Categories:

Consumer, Crowdfunding