So Your Product Didn’t Live Up to the Hype — What Now?

So, what happened with No Man’s Sky?

This happened

It ended up being the biggest blunder I have seen in YEARS in the gaming industry. I’d venture to say nothing since the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy (which I have written about in the past) has had such a vocal outcry and outright damnnation against it.

Released in mid-August of 2016, the game, with incredibly high levels of hype, was a buggy mess. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary for most game releases these days.

However, all those things that were promised in the trailers and the bull shots? All of which is still found on the steam page for the game? A good majority of that was half-baked, or not in the product at all. There’s plenty of articles and videos that demonstrate this. Here’s a quick 30 second video that gives a demonstration.

Now, it’s sadly a fact that a vast majority of games end up getting downgraded from what gets show at exhibitions or previews, but this was nowhere event close to what was being promised.
In fact, the promises vs. actual was so off that No Man’s Sky is being investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority. Ouch!

Using Steam Chart, which shows how many people are playing on Steam, there was a significant drop, and rather quickly, once players discovered they’ve been duped.

Dat Drop

The game is now one of the lowest rated games on Steam, where it “currently has a “mostly negative” overall rating, based on 71,366 user reviews. Even when you look at recent reviews separately, 5,509 reviews have left it bearing an “overwhelmingly negative” rating.”

Now, if this game didn’t have the price tag of $60, an anomaly for an indie game, didn’t have Sony backing it (in which president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios threw them under the bus for not delivering on their promises), and didn’t have the incredible levels of hype that it had lashed on it, this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal.

However, it became hyped as the greatest thing since sliced bread (and the studio didn’t really do much to cut down on this) and in the end was a grave disappointment for a vast majority of players.

So, why am I writing about it now?

No Man’s Sky was a perfect example of a product ending up on the hype train, and the team working on it could not control it. There’s plenty of things going in within, but let’s look at a bit of a timeline.

This Tweet, sent by Project lead Sean Murray (and co-founder of the company Hello Games) was sent a couple of days after the launch of the game.

And then?

Silence. Absolute silence.

Now, to note, the company did receive death threats when the game was delayed earlier this year, so that no doubt plays a part in their response.

For over two months, there was not a word from the company.

Of all the things the company could have done, this was easily the worst. If it were a week, then it could slide, but over two months? There were plenty of angry gamers and articles being written asking what was going on with the company and how the silence was the worst possible choice you could make.

So, to review my previous article, let’s look at some concepts I said to do when dealing with hype.

• In the face of hype, remain calm.
• Focus on releasing the best iterations possible.
• You need to be rational, and not act on emotion.
• Make better decisions upstream in regards to scope.

Of course, now looking at this, they did so much wrong, but adding communicate to your customers should be added. And by remaining calm, I don’t mean “go radio silent for two months”.

So, why am I now writing about this? The reason is what happened on October 28th, 2016, when this tweet was sent from Hello Games.

The tweet is now gone, but its impact was made. The gaming media was all over it, and there was a lot of confusion. Was this a hack? Was it a disgruntled employee? Was it Sean Murray himself? Was it a “hack” that was done by the company themselves?

Let’s take a look at the next set of Tweets from Sean Murray, the first since his silence since August 18th 2016.

And with that, the silence was broken. Nothing else about the status of the game or updates.

To note, I’ve never played the game. In fact, it’s become a fascinating case study to follow about how not to let the hype train take control of your product, and what happens after launch when you don’t come anywhere close to living up to the hype. I think a book could easily be written about what happened with this game.

So, as product managers, what can we learn about the No Man’s Sky example for hype and how to deal with it?

It’s a fact of life that the product that we envision may not turn out to what we had originally envisioned. However, overtime, the product can evolve, as we get it closer to what you initially had in mind.

However, for video games, this is still not the reality. The day one sales are key. There used to be a time when games (and like products in general) did not have the luxury of constant patches and iterations. You had one chance to ship it, and that was it. Now, that’s no longer an issue.

Yes, games are increasingly getting shipped being a buggy and unplayable mess. It’s a sad reality, but that happens. One of my favorite games ever, Fallout New Vegas, was damn near unplayable at launch, but several patches, months, and mods later, it was no longer an issue. No Man’s Sky, while buggy, shipped and was nothing like was promised.

There’s a big difference there.

So, while it’s easy to say “don’t let the hype train escape you”, if you’re in the situation, what do you do?

Well, you don’t go radio silent for a long period of time. There was a lot of speculation that the studio took the money and ran (which was not the case). Instead, make your message clear, state what you’re going to do, and move forward. You don’t have to address every little single concern and respond to every single customer, but you can’t just vanish without a word.

Perhaps the game will get to the point where it’s much closer to the original vision. However, at that point, will people still care? People are going to be extremely skeptical of games from the company, or anything with Sean Murray’s name attached to it. And that’s a real shame. I think it’s safe to say that the team had all the best of intentions and weren’t planning to pull a fast one on people. Instead, as deadlines loomed and hype grew, they had to make the cuts required, and it ended up being far different than what was promised.

In conclusion.

The story of No Man’s Sky is not over yet. Will there be an anonymous leak from the inside that will spill all the beans? Will project lead Sean Murray come forward and discussed what happened? No Man’s Sky is a perfect example of a product not living up to the hype around it, and a perfect example of what NOT to do after the product is out.

Still, with the sales numbers, despite some refunds, Hello Games is laughing all the way to the bank. But at what cost?

Originally published at www.pmpaul.com on November 4, 2016.