This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can’t be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
If i must abide by your original metafora i would say:
They promised grandiose skycraper and delivered shotty apartment complex and the tenant who had bought the apartments were understandably angry. Very few of the tenants stayed anyway, but by all means the building was a failure to the point it would be completelly understandable to have the whole building just bulldozed.
But where most companies would just disbanded and or disapeared with the money, they kept working on the building. Added new floors, made the yard nicer, lowered the prices of the apartments and the whole time tried their best to keep the remaining few people living there happy. And after few years (decates really if you think how much faster gaming industry develops than housing) the place started to be closer what the original brochure said.
Eventually new people start to get intrested about the apartments and the people who originally bought the apartments started to move back in without paying any additional fees. And while the windows were little smaller and the shower tiling were little different than originally promised, people seem to like living there. In a way the constant repairs and the new additions to the place, make it even better to some people.
The point that makes that building special is that nine times out of ten, in these situations the tenants are left with unhabitable home or even closed down building. And even more often the tenants need to pay additional fees to acces the fixed parts of the building.
Is this purely genorosity from the builder? Of course not. They also have bills to pay and in the end its their livelyhood and they surely have investers waiting a return for their money. But is it monumental showing of backbone from the builder to not walk away from the project, but keep working on it. Absolutelly.