Wounded pride and a
ton of money for a small company like that. They got enough money to comfortably run the company for
at least a couple years if not the
entire time since launch until now. The wikipedia page sticks it right along-side other highly successful AAA launches around the same time because it was
that "successful" despite being an absolute mess of a game:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky#Sales