It’s not silly. games use far more hardware than they really need. It also pushes out release dates of aggressive console schedules like ps6 because even if it’s a massive upgrade and you have IP locked into your console, no one is going to pay $4000 to play a game like wolverine.
Have you ever worked at a large company? This is simply not how things are done. Speaking up about something like this is almost a guaranteed fast track to getting laid off in the next round of reduction in force, and if you do somehow have the pull individually or collectively to make a meaningful difference here, coordinating all those levers in a way that satisfies the board/shareholders and effects meaningful change is pretty much an impossibility. And we're dealing with nation states who are going to have their own levers to push (and internally too). For an individual contributor or hell, someone who's not on the board/C suite, quitting and letting management know they're losing talent because of their stance on certain issues is probably the most effective thing someone can do in that spot.
Following your line of thinking, why don't you join microsoft and effect such change? I guess it's easier to leave a moralizing snarky comment and feel good about yourself.
> Not in the "wash your hands every thirty minutes like Howard Hughes" kind of way,
Hold on, this isn't that crazy in today's day and age. I used to wash my hands basically only when using the restroom or before eating. Since the pandemic though, I started upping that a lot (not every 30 minutes, but pretty frequently) and since then almost never get sick.
The Cochrane review of "physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses" that infamously does not find a significant effect for masking does find significant effects for hand washing.
> We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.
> Hand hygiene programmes may help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.
> There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect.
> Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI [influenza-like illnesses] and laboratory‐confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes.
> Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory‐confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators.
> Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies.
Anecdote: During the pandemic I added washing my hands every time I get back to my office building (and specifically after interacting with surfaces the public interacts with) to my usual hand washing (after bathrooms and before eating, just like you). I keep a towel in my hand for any door handles between the restroom and my office door. Since doing this I feel like I've noticed fewer illnesses, too.
This is exactly why I think this article is wrong: it starts with a false premise that devs are sane to begin with (not because you're right or wrong re hand washing but because this is an insane thing to focus on from the article).
I think people are regurgitating takes from early in the game's development - the game of the last few years is absolutely nothing like the early one and I agree, there is a surprising amount of stuff to do.
FWIW, I was there from the beginning, and stopped fairly quickly (maybe 20 or so hours in).
I hopped back in a couple years later after a few updates, and agree that the quantity of content was pretty big. But the quality was not -- it still felt "empty", and never held my interest long.
Last year, the same thing happened. I hopped back on after a few big updates, probably spent another 10 or so hours on it (I think I started over), and felt like I had explored all there was.
I feel like all the criticisms it gets are valid. I agree that the effort of maintaining a game after 10 years is incredibly admirable, especially since ever update has been free. That's amazing. And the devs should be acknowledged for that.
But the game itself still feels largely empty. The progression feels mostly repetitive without feeling like you're really moving forward in a meaningful way. And, as others have said, the proc gen still feels "vanilla".
I probably won't hop back in after this update. I've learned, by now, that while many praise the new content, it'll probably just feel like more of the same to me.
To be fair, it sounds like you got a decent play time for a one time purchase ages ago. It’s ok not to love everything.
Personally, I like to do the expeditions, and then maybe a couple of hours after. It’s not the focus of my game library, but I enjoy the star seeing every now and then.
I have never played, but I watched all the drama unfold on reddit. It makes me wonder, is this what happens when you have an underwhelming launch? "You only make a first impression once" - and there is a huge price to pay for that?
In SaaS and YC, it's ship early and ship often, right? Is that absolutely not the case in games? Also, how true is it in SaaS? Genuinely curious here.
Yes, I believe this is a thing. I'm not sure why, but I think for game releases, especially hyped AAA games, your highest player counts are almost definitely going to be the highest in the first weeks of release, so that's the strongest impression. Almost all games see a steep drop off of concurrent players later on, then it stabilizes. Improvements later are thus much less visible, and all the players that got the bad first impression have little reason to go back. I think NMS particularly made a bad mistake compounding this by hyping up the game beyond what it could actually do when it was released - that's an unforgiveable sin to a gamer.
Stuff like this, it's why I often avoid big releases for the first year or two then go play it when it's on sale.
For another perfect game example - Star Wars Outlaws. Terrible, buggy release with obnoxious gameplay loops. They fixed it, now it's one of the better games I've played recently. You can go look up gameplay reviews from the last year to see people shocked at its reputation, it's a very good game now and arguably would have been a candidate for GOTY if it had released in its current form.
No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 are actually proof you can have an awful launch and still pivot into a large player base and continued sales via updates.
Reception for both games is largely positive despite their poor initial response.
Cyberpunk 2077 is in a worse state, though. CDPR axed multiplayer from the roadmap after launch, and the updates it got (eg. working police cars, outfit transmog) should have been there at release.
NMS is no crown jewel, but Hello Games did add multiplayer and held pretty close to the original vision that was offered. It's much more "fixed" than current Cyberpunk 2077 is, at least IMO.
In general that’s correct and you can generally estimate sales over the life of the game before the the end of release day. But there are also early access games, which are completely the opposite. Not very much in between those two extremes though.
NMS really is an exception, that they sold well enough at launch that they can keep providing free major updates for 10 years.
I think maybe you're discounting that people have agency and can decide that a game they are playing actively doesn't tick their boxes. I reinstalled it last week and put in about two hours before uninstalling again. Mile wide and inch deep is exactly the way to describe it.
> I think maybe you're discounting that people have agency and can decide that a game they are playing actively doesn't tick their boxes.
> Mile wide and inch deep is exactly the way to describe it.
Aren't you doing the same thing you're saying? Plenty of comments in this thread disagree with your assessment. If the game isn't for you, that's one thing, but it's a factually untrue thing to say "there's nothing to do, game is sparse after a few hours and novelty wears off" like many comments say. This suggests the person did not actually see a lot of the game, which is fine, but it's still not a trustworthy evaluation to me.
> If the game isn't for you, that's one thing, but it's a factually untrue thing to say "there's nothing to do, game is sparse after a few hours and novelty wears off" like many comments say.
Every time I come back to the game and try a new update, the game is indeed sparse after a few hours, and the novelty wears off...
As someone who played it for the very first time just last year, those 10 year old takes ring absolutely true to my experience in the game. It was fun for a little while, but it became repetitive and shallow quickly.
Oh, I don't think so. The systems in the game are very shallow, and overall, everything is too easy, which makes the game feel bland. There are almost no stakes. That leads to a feeling of nothing to do because none of it feels worth doing.
> I think people are regurgitating takes from early in the game's development...
Some are, sure. But -I say as someone who enjoys the game for what it is and still pops in every now and again to mess around with it- there's not much game in the game. Like BoBaitlyn said, it's a sandbox game. It has always been a sandbox game, and there are some folks who spend a few minutes fucking around with the sand in the box, go "WTF, this is boring as shit. I'm out!" and are boggled at the folks who enjoy playing with all the sand.
There's nothing wrong with being boggled or talking about how much you hated the sandbox. Specific sandboxes tend to appeal to specific sorts of people... each one often has its own gimmick that will pull in different sorts of folks. Suggesting that most complainers are complaining from a position of ignorance when they're complaining about a lack of things to do in a game that doesn't have much game in it kinda sucks. I've been playing off and on since v1, and have played for about half of the major patches. Hello Games has added a lot of stuff, but they haven't really added in much game to the game, if you see what I'm saying?
I can see your viewpoint. Some people don’t like sandbox games. that’s fine, I actually hate them, but this game’s additions led me into it gently in a way I’d never interact with say, a minecraft game. However, this is like, a sandbox game on steroids. There’s a strong mmo component of grouping, more being added (per this topic), and playing however you want to is entirely possible. In that regard I consider it one of the better sandboxes I’ve played lately, and I have played hundreds of hours of games like star citizen. I’d wish star citizen approached the game loop similarly.
Are you sure that you've played it recently? They added an actual story, a huge quest hub, unique items, tons of stuff to do really. I'm quite overwhelmed with the amount of things to do and I don't typically enjoy sandboxes.
Not OP, but my main issue is that after visiting a few systems and a bunch of planets, you kinda saw everything the procedural generation has to offer, and visiting planets becomes boring quickly, at least for me. There are differences, and as someone mentioned there are some unique planets for sure, but for the most part they all look samey. Wildlife is also just walking/flying around doing nothing.
This takes away the incentive to go and explore, which is supposed to be the main attraction to the game
It becomes boring very quickly for me too, the planets are the same, the stations are exactly the same, every alien you meet is the same as the previous ones. You build a base on one planet, then another base on another planet, and it's just the same.
The game is also too unrealistic for me: the planets are too close, you shoot asteroids just like you could 47 years ago, you can't dig very deep at all, your ship follow you wherever you jump to.
The trailer was beautiful, the actual game is really nice for a short while, but it's too simplistic and repetitive.
Visiting planets is just a very small part of the overall game. That was more the first NMS.
Wildlife for example you can train as pets, mounts or milk/harvest.
Once you get access to the Space anomaly the game opens up more and if you are social you will find outposts, pet arenas, race tracks and dog fighting/pvp zones. Ship building and freighters.
The latest update appears to allow groups to control areas of space.
All games eventually get boring but there is plenty in now.
> Once you get access to the Space anomaly the game opens up more and if you are social you will find outposts, pet arenas, race tracks and dog fighting/pvp zones. Ship building and freighters.
Outposts sound cool. I assume they aren’t just all the same thing. What do they offer? I’m sure it won’t be something I look at for 5 minutes and think ‘yeah this is neat’ and then realise there’s nothing deeper than that, right?
Ship building and freighters sound cool. I’m sure I’ll be motivated to do that because my stock ship is really holding me back. Oh wait, combat is a joke and I can perma farm max bounties playing with my toes with my default shop I bought on max difficulty/permadeath.
I agree; I stopped playing years ago after completing what was the main quest of the time (uncovering the nature of the universe and getting to the center). I even setup a decent sized farm for one of the more rare materials to make a billion or so credits (until they nerfed the economy for that).
The planet variety is disappointing. And the prefab 'locations of interest' get really, really boring.
But, I admit I may have to fire it up if what I get to explore is player generated now. And if they're actually making some locations more lucrative for either the resources or what's available to actually process them, I would at least want to check it out.
I've bounced off NMS several times, but each time I come back, I reason that they've added so many systems now that the procedural generation must finally feel genuinely deep and interesting.
And maybe it has, but the first 60 minutes of the game still feel like enough of a slog that I have yet to get to any of the good stuff.
The first 60 minutes are definitely a slog, but once you open up access to the quest hub and get access to larger ships that function as bases, the game really opens up. I play it as a "get away" from more competitive/stressful games. The exploration of planets never really appealed to me and doesn't feel like a huge component of the game as much as maybe it did in the early days unless you're hunting for particular resource nodes.
> Worth naming: the Add to cart button is still black.
Got an audible guffaw out of me. This really is what the experience is like sometimes if you're just giving it a result without being specific in implementation, and it comes out of nowhere, some days much worse than others.
I've become patient with it, but whatever this style of output is called or doing - it is both condescending and entirely unhelpful, and it seems designed to frustrate.
That aligns with your goals of analysing problems, admitting fault and surfacing that through use of clear and concise language. Not just simply wrong — this screams finessed, nuanced, polished communication after an understandable mistake discovered through pressure-tested interlocution.
Dogs can attack with no indication or reason, some breeds take more of a lion's share for that than others. It is entirely reasonable to feel fear in the presence of a dog, especially if you've been the victim of an attack or seen one before. The conversation around responsible dog ownership is really delusional.
reply