No Man's Refund
See what I did there with the subject? Eh? eh?
Yeah, seems that No Man's Sky has been so utterly disappointing to a lot of people now that they've learned/confirmed that most of the promised features of the game are not actually in the game. Steam has been giving refunds even past the usual 2 hour gametime cut off. Amazon is apparently doing refunds. Supposedly Sony themselves are even doing some refunds on the PS4 despite their usual Absolutely No Refunds policy.
And do this, former "strategic content director" for Sony decided to be a twit on twitter and stick his foot in his mouth, claiming that anyone who racks up 50 hours of gametime and gets a refund is a thief. He did a little backpeddling on twitter as well as he tries to look like less of a dick, but it fails overall.
Here's two things to consider. No Man's Sky is a space game with a LOT of space. It's easy to go past 2 hours without scratching the surface. (of more than one planet!) So within 2 hours, it's pretty easy to just assume the things you haven't seen yet, that are suppose to be in the game, simply weren't on that particular planet. Normally 50 hours would be enough to complete a game 10 times over these days. 9_9 But with a space exploration game filled with a lot of empty space, it takes time to realize you've been lied to. In many cases I wouldn't doubt the only reason people are finding out now that there's not even a worthwhile ending to the game is because others got to the center of the galaxy first and posted youtube videos about the disappointing non-ending. (You're just whipped away from it as credits roll. WTF did you even bother going through the trouble of getting there?)
However, this is only part of the issue I have with the statement by the guy. The other thing is that the gametime counter on Steam is ANYTHING but infallible. It's showing how long a game was supposedly running. NOT how long the game was being played.
Here's a REAL LIFE example for myself. And consider that I can EASILY see this being the case with a lot of No Man Sky players given how buggy and crash-happy the game was until 3-4 bug patches were released.
One of the visual novels I have on steam claims I have over 50 hours of gametime in on it. It takes only 3 hours to auto-play through that from start to finish. There are no choices. It's literally a visual -novel-. I've gone through it several times, since the voice acting is well done, but I most certainly haven't been playing it anywhere near 50 hours.
Where does the 50 hours come from then? There was one time when the game crashed on me. No pro. I've had steam games crash on me before, so I just went on about my business and did something else. Later that weekend I felt the urge to go back to it but the game failed to start. Why? It claimed it was already running. I found that odd, particularly since there was absolutely no window open or visible. So after a few attempts to open the game failed, I checked task manager - and low and behold, the game was listed. I terminated the lingering process there then tried it again. The game launched!
However, that little process was ticking up the time spent playing the game, incorrectly, for the last 40 hours. I can easily see that happening to No Man's Sky players. The game -was- crashing a lot after all. On PC and console.
Yeah, seems that No Man's Sky has been so utterly disappointing to a lot of people now that they've learned/confirmed that most of the promised features of the game are not actually in the game. Steam has been giving refunds even past the usual 2 hour gametime cut off. Amazon is apparently doing refunds. Supposedly Sony themselves are even doing some refunds on the PS4 despite their usual Absolutely No Refunds policy.
And do this, former "strategic content director" for Sony decided to be a twit on twitter and stick his foot in his mouth, claiming that anyone who racks up 50 hours of gametime and gets a refund is a thief. He did a little backpeddling on twitter as well as he tries to look like less of a dick, but it fails overall.
Here's two things to consider. No Man's Sky is a space game with a LOT of space. It's easy to go past 2 hours without scratching the surface. (of more than one planet!) So within 2 hours, it's pretty easy to just assume the things you haven't seen yet, that are suppose to be in the game, simply weren't on that particular planet. Normally 50 hours would be enough to complete a game 10 times over these days. 9_9 But with a space exploration game filled with a lot of empty space, it takes time to realize you've been lied to. In many cases I wouldn't doubt the only reason people are finding out now that there's not even a worthwhile ending to the game is because others got to the center of the galaxy first and posted youtube videos about the disappointing non-ending. (You're just whipped away from it as credits roll. WTF did you even bother going through the trouble of getting there?)
However, this is only part of the issue I have with the statement by the guy. The other thing is that the gametime counter on Steam is ANYTHING but infallible. It's showing how long a game was supposedly running. NOT how long the game was being played.
Here's a REAL LIFE example for myself. And consider that I can EASILY see this being the case with a lot of No Man Sky players given how buggy and crash-happy the game was until 3-4 bug patches were released.
One of the visual novels I have on steam claims I have over 50 hours of gametime in on it. It takes only 3 hours to auto-play through that from start to finish. There are no choices. It's literally a visual -novel-. I've gone through it several times, since the voice acting is well done, but I most certainly haven't been playing it anywhere near 50 hours.
Where does the 50 hours come from then? There was one time when the game crashed on me. No pro. I've had steam games crash on me before, so I just went on about my business and did something else. Later that weekend I felt the urge to go back to it but the game failed to start. Why? It claimed it was already running. I found that odd, particularly since there was absolutely no window open or visible. So after a few attempts to open the game failed, I checked task manager - and low and behold, the game was listed. I terminated the lingering process there then tried it again. The game launched!
However, that little process was ticking up the time spent playing the game, incorrectly, for the last 40 hours. I can easily see that happening to No Man's Sky players. The game -was- crashing a lot after all. On PC and console.