THIS MAN’S SKY
Hey guys,
One of the biggest games this year, No Man’s Sky, is releasing this month. We’ve waited years to explore the endlessly generated neon-lighted galaxies and it’s crazy to think it’s out this month.
People can’t bear to wait any longer though and are potentially ruining the experience for others. Reddit user Daymeeuhn told fellow Reddit users in a post on the game’s subreddit that he bought an early copy of the game for $1250 USD to play the game before anyone else in an attempt to avoid spoilers. Fellow Reddit users wanted to know his impressions on the game so he shared gameplay footage on YouTube before they were taken down and then later re-uploaded on Dailymotion by other users.
Personally, I can’t understand imagine spending over $1500 Australian dollars – enough to buy a budget gaming PC, the 15 upcoming games for this year at full retail prices or, even, an industrial sized fridge! – to play a game releasing in less than a fortnight before everyone else.
That said, Daymeeuhn’s intentions are entirely pure as he really did just want to have a wholesome and unique experience with the game, and that *might* be hard to do if you explore a planet that’s unpleasantly named. It definitely breaks immersion which is what I feel is at the core of No Man’s Sky – pun (un)intended.
What’s worse: He’s already “beaten” the game by discovering the centre of the universe. He may have wanted to not have himself be spoiled, but leaking information about the game prior to its release is only spoiling it for others. I haven’t looked up what’s at the centre of the universe and I don’t plan to, but I’m going to be anxious about going on forums, subreddits and even scrolling through YouTube comments.
The Founder of the development studio behind No Man’s Sky, Hello Games, and the game’s Creator, Sean Murray, even expressed displeasing words about the leaks, saying, “we’ve spent years filing No Man’s Sky with surprises. You’ve spent years waiting. Please don’t spoil it for yourself.”
Daymeeuhn took these words to heart and mentioned that he never intended to disappoint Murray. Unfortunately the internet has already taken things out of hand.
I understand that people are sceptical of No Man’s Sky and unaware of what it really is, but I don’t think that justifies buying it before anyone else.
Anyways, I wanted to know what you guys thought about the whole ordeal and similar cases when games are leaked before their release. Sebastian Wang
Hi Sebastian – the problems with games with as much hype and expectation as No Man’s Sky is that they rarely, if ever, live up to the lofty expectations of gamers. While we haven’t played it yet, we’re expecting No Man’s Sky to be something akin to Elite in that you’ll get out of it what you put in. The joy of procedurally generated content is discovery, not ploughing through content, so sure, a Redditor may have been able to “beat” the game in 30 hours, but the question is, what did he miss during the journey? Now before anyone comments, we won’t make any judgements of the game until we actually get to play it, but in this case, at least, it seems to us that not only can a game not live up to the impossible expectations placed upon it, someone paying a stupid amount of money for a pre-release game is probably more likely to find fault than someone who waited for their pre-order to come through.