No Man's Sky Serves Live Service Master Class As Steam Reviews Tip Into 'Very Positive'

[Cpt.Jank]

It's no secret among gamers that No Man's Sky had a rocky launch. When the game launched over eight years ago, it was nearly universally slammed by gamers for its lack of completion and failure to deliver on lofty goals. Since then, though, the game's developer, Hello Games, has issued several updates, adding content and improving mechanics to a point where most consumers—at least those on Steam—are apparently happy with the state of No Man's Sky.

According to SteamDB, in January 2017, just three months after No Man's Sky launched, it had more than twice as many negative Steam reviews as positive. That situation started to change in around July 2018, when a spike in positive reviews rolled in after the nearly revolutionary No Man's Sky Next update. At that point, No Man's Sky still had a roughly 50-50 split between positive and negative reviews, but it was already trending upwards after the initial wave of just over 55,000 negative reviews. Since then, with every major update, the number of cumulative positive reviews seemed to climb a little more. As of today, however, No Man's Sky has an 81% positive review rating on Steam, having recently passed the 80% threshold to be considered "Very Positive."



The news of No Man's Sky's long-term success after it flopped at launch comes shortly after news that Ubisoft disbanded the development team behind Prince of Persia The Lost Crown just 10 months after its somewhat disappointing commercial performance. In a similar vein, Sony recently axed its newest hero shooter, Concord, mere weeks after launch, due to abysmal reviews and player counts. With No Man's Sky, however, Hello Games sort of proved that a dedicated development team that takes feedback and implements changes can turn things around, even if it takes a while.

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[wolf]

Look I can applaud their commitment to improving the game and delivering(?) on the promises made, and perhaps now it's actually even better than what was first promised... But a master class? wouldn't a master class start with the game not launching in such a terrible state? They wouldn't be so improved if the launch wasn't so bad, but man I'd call it more a cautionary tale in how not to launch a game than a master class in running a live service game.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Look I can applaud their commitment to improving the game and delivering(?) on the promises made, and perhaps now it's actually even better than what was first promised... But a master class? wouldn't a master class start with the game not launching in such a terrible state? They wouldn't be so improved if the launch wasn't so bad, but man I'd call it more a cautionary tale in how not to launch a game than a master class in running a live service game.

Yeah, this game being "forgiven" lead to every other studio deciding that releasing unfinished trash and taking years to complete it (hello halo infinite) was perfectly fine and consumers would have no issue with it. It doesnt fix the fact this game was sold on false marketing, still is frankly (steam's screenshots still show the beta UI that never launched). and that if you count pre dev this game has now been in development for 12 YEARS. And frankly, its another sandbox craft=em-up. Reminds me a lot of starforge, and not in a good way.

Hopefully Sean learns his lesson and keeps his mouth shut on the next game, and lets a PR guy handle advertisement.

You want a "masterclass" in running a live service game? Fortnite. There you go. NMS is the glue eating special kid int he back that got no-child-left-behind-ed into the upper grades because we cant hold anyone back.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I don't think NMS was a great game when it launched. It was certainly missing aspects that people were expecting to have and that certainly did suck. With that aside, it was a solid exploration space game. Many places to explore, lots to see and aside from a few technical issues I had to get mods for, I'd say it was well worth the $50 I paid to spend 50-60 hours playing it.

It is a completely different game now compared to the vanilla version, so much so that controls I remember having were changed/moved/adjusted, there is base building, actual co-op and so much more that I'd have to spend another 20+ hours just to relearn the basics and then some for everything else they added to the game.

I think it's impressive how much extra time and money they put into the game to make it what it is today. The game is on the list of co-op games my brother and I want to get playing, but who knows when that will even be with all the games we already have.

 

[Fouquin]

Look I can applaud their commitment to improving the game and delivering(?) on the promises made, and perhaps now it's actually even better than what was first promised... But a master class? wouldn't a master class start with the game not launching in such a terrible state? They wouldn't be so improved if the launch wasn't so bad, but man I'd call it more a cautionary tale in how not to launch a game than a master class in running a live service game.

It's pretty simple: it's both. One does not exclude the other.

 

[Lew Zealand]

A lot more underpromising and emphasis on Early Access could have made NMS closer to a "Master Class" but that's not how it went.

You want a "masterclass" in running a live service game? Fortnite. There you go.

Agreed. Fortnite still amazes me that it's doing so well and damn if they haven't been doing it right from the start ~6 years ago.

 

[wolf]

It's pretty simple: it's both. One does not exclude the other.

Gonna have to agree to disagree there

 

[eidairaman1]

Mediocrity seems to be the standard game devs go by today since all seem to suffer consolitis

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

Master Class in sandbox type game sure
Master Class in Story line, no way much too short.

 

[Hyderz]

maybe ubisoft can learn from this company

 

[nguyen]

Well I guess the game will be free once its development has finished

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I love this game, can't wait for my new 5080/5070Ti. This game has big VRAM issues though, as soon as you hit the ceiling, performance tanks right through the floor. They made major progress with this game, it nice to kick back with a glass of wine, traverse through space and explore a little.

 

[TheDeeGee]

maybe ubisoft can learn from this company

Ubisoft goes as far as to require DLC to play the main game.

Naah, they're done next year.

 

[Prima.Vera]

How's going with the Star Citizen? )) Is it in pre-alfa yet?

 

[Chomiq]

How's going with the Star Citizen? )) Is it in pre-alfa yet?

Nah, they need few more billions for that. Make sure you buy some extra ships

 

[z1tu]

You want a "masterclass" in running a live service game? Fortnite. There you go. NMS is the glue eating special kid int he back that got no-child-left-behind-ed into the upper grades because we cant hold anyone back.

Are we really comparing Epic Games Studios to Hello Games? Yeah, they underdelivered and botched the launch but let's not compare apples to oranges.