“Your actions are so much more important than what you say.”
Sean Murray, founder of Hello Games and the creator of No Man’s Sky, has discussed a bit more about how his team handled the backlash following the launch of No Man’s Sky and why companies like EA, Microsoft, and Bethesda should focus more on letting their work do the talking as opposed to trying to “placate players by just talking to them.”
As reported by GamesRadar, Murray spoke during the keynote panel at 2019’s Develop conference in Brighton, UK, and discussed how difficult it was to stay quiet following No Man’s Sky’s rough release in 2016.
“We went about two years without talking to press at all,” Murray said. “And we went about three months without saying anything to the community either. That was really hard. I sat down so many times and wrote the perfect blog post that was going to explain everything about the game’s development, and the road map going ahead. But I could see that it didn’t hold credibility with regards to where we were at.”
Anthem, Fallout 76, Sea of Thieves
Murray then turned the focus to companies like EA, Microsoft, and Bethesda, as they all had similar launch troubles with Anthem, Sea of Thieves, and Fallout 76, respectively.
“There have been a number of games that have since come out, had a polarizing launch, and that explosive mix of loads of people playing it but also problems,” Murray continued. “And I can see EA, Microsoft, or Bethesda try to placate players by just talking to them, but for right or wrong, it just doesn’t really work. You see this all the time when a big publisher will talk to the community and try to solve the problem and then get embroiled, taking up more and more of its head space.”
Further expanding his thoughts, Murray spoke GamesRadar in a followup interview and said “Talking about features when a game’s already out isn’t that credible or interesting. Your actions are so much more important than what you say.”
The Redemption of No Man’s Sky
In our original No Man’s Sky review from 2016, we said “No Man’s Sky reaches for the stars but falls short by light years. It’s amazingly big, but too often poorly designed.”
Following its launch, Hello Games did go quiet for some time but has since released No Man’s Sky NEXT, which added multiplayer, a third-person perspective, and so much more.
Hello Games also announced No Man’s Sky Beyond, which will bring with it No Man’s Sky Online and the ability to play the entire game in VR.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who loves No Man’s Sky and can’t wait to play it in VR. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst.
