Hacker News Reader

Comment by feoren | Hacker News Reader

Wait, No Man's Sky? That game? Was it bought or something? Do they still have that liar who went on interviews and lied through his teeth about the game? It's pretty rare to see a project based entirely on lies from a smarmy psycho liar ever actually go anywhere, right? Did they ever go back and actually implement any of the things he lied were already in the base game?

View on HN

That "smarmy psycho liar" was an introverted developer-turned-ceo who was in over his head. He is now beloved by the community. Sean Murray is a legend. They have been over-delivering on NMS for the better part of a decade now without charging for anything but the base game.

And yes, they implemented all of it. Everything that was promised and much much more. Just check out the trailer for Echoes that dropped yesterday (the new update for the game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqpVCwwuyh8

I don't know if he really was psycho; I'm not a psychologist. But he was absolutely smarmy, and absolutely lied through his teeth about things he knew were false at the time. I'm sorry, "in over my head" is not an excuse for lying about your game in order to pump up pre-release sales. That is called fraud. He committed fraud.

I'm glad to hear he seems to regret it. I do suspect allowing some room for redemption and regret is a better strategy for reducing negative behaviors than completely writing someone off. It might have been nice if he faced actual legal consequences for his criminal fraud (alright alright I am not a lawyer), but barring that, I'll take self-correction.

Yes, they did go back. They basically used all the money they made from the hype and used it to make it real. Players bought them a billboard across from their office saying thank you. (https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/cr85av/th... ) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ for one rendition of the story.

Yes, that game. You must check it out. Easily the best redemption arc of any game development story, ever. By a mile. It’s insane how much content has been put into the game.

No Man’s Sky is a redemption story.

No, they polished a turd. It's still the same terrible gameplay loop they had at launch but convinced saps that it was better because they added more and more layers of paint onto it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com