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Astroneer Developers Reference No Man's Sky Debacle To Detail Early Access Launch

legacyzero

legacyzero

Banned
Source: Astroneer Blog
"MANAGING EXPECTATIONS IS (PROBABLY) IMPOSSIBLE."

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I don’t enjoy writing about the missteps of other developers, but in the name of transparency I think this is an important point to make: The controversial release of No Man’s Sky fuels a lot of discussions about the development and marketing of Astroneer and more importantly the reaction the gaming community had to it. A lot of the press coverage about Astroneer links the two games together and we’ve seen a lot of talk amongst our community about those connections.
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I’m not going to comment on one specific aspect of the game or the people behind it. This blog post isn’t about that. I want to take this opportunity to put into practice the most important thing we’ve learned from witnessing No Man’s Sky: Know what you are saying, but understand what is heard.
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When Astroneer launches in December it will be an incomplete game.

The game’s core designs will be playable, but some will be fleshed out more than others.

There will be art that looks incomplete, very rough, or too simple.

The multiplayer will hitch and probably act weird (hilariously so).

Audio be missing or trigger in the wrong spots. Or maybe the music playing isn’t appropriate for your moment.

You may even experience a game-breaking bug that will force you to start over from scratch.

You’ll load the game up for the first time and almost certainly experience and form an opinion about at least one of those things. That’s exactly the reason we want you to check out Astroneer while it’s in early access. We have a vision for the game; a direction we’re taking it in, and we need to know what you think as early as possible. Astroneer is not an aerospace simulation game, nor is it a completely science-fiction fantasy game. It’s something in-between. The best thing about releasing the game early is the feedback we’ll receive from you, the community, and evolving the game from there. This can happen anywhere: On our own forums (a work-in-progress we’ve yet to share), the Steam Forums, Reddit, Twitter, or Facebook . And while I am telling you the game will be incomplete when it releases in December— a sometimes overlooked characteristic of an early access game— what will be present this December are the games’ core features, gameplay, and virtues of Astroneer-the-game: Exploring and surviving on uninhabited planets, making new discoveries, 3D printing things with resources you discovered or manufactured, building a base to meet your own goals, traveling to new planets in your solar system, and interacting with planets using the Astroneer’s Deformation Tool. And you’ll be able to do those things with 3 additional friends using peer-to-peer co-op. (Couch co-op TBD.)

I hope that sets the right expectations of the game when it releases to early access later this year and how you can support or participate its development. We’ve learned a lot about how to treat our game when and its release and we want to do it right. To make sure we’ve set the right expectations or if you have any questions please email, Tweet, or Facebook us.
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Devs are taking a clear line that they dont wish to suffer the same downfall that NMS did. Making it clear that it's going to be Early Access, and the experience wont be a full one at first.

It's unfortunate that another developer has to do something like that after No Man's Sky pissed in the industry pool.

Upload me to the Atlas if old.
 
LOL. It is amazing that in a year when Mighty No. 9 came out, One Man's Lie will end up being people's biggest disappointment.
 
This makes me happy. Good for them!

I will definitely check out the game literally just because of this.

I mean of coarse it helps that I like space games lol.
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
LOL. It is amazing that in a year when Mighty No. 9 came out, One Man's Lie will end up being people's biggest disappointment.
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The only potential MN9 had was the one and only piece of concept art shown in the original Kickstarter though. Beyond that, the game never really had anything going for it. There's no impressive pre-launch footage out there for MN9 like there is with NMS' reveal footage.
 
weird they had to reference no man sky...

from the trailer and the blog post it seems like this is an early access game and labeled as such?

Like anything busted has the right to be busted. don't have to fret about it.
 
I understand the skittishness, especially as the games could appear similar to some, but I don't think they have anything to worry about.

NMS was unique in that they heavily promoted the game while also being very vague as to what the game is, in addition to over promising features.

Astroneer has been kicking around for a while, and the devs have been very open to the press in giving them hands-on time and long form video.
 
I want to take this opportunity to put into practice the most important thing we’ve learned from witnessing No Man’s Sky: Know what you are saying, but understand what is heard.
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It's great to see that devs are learning from HG's mistakes. Even if it is an aerly access game and even if the devs where good devs to begin with because it sends a message to the devs that aren't that this is the way the people want the industry to be. If nothing else comes of this whole debacle I hope this trend grows. A healthier industry in the end would make it all worth it. IMO
 
I don’t enjoy writing about the missteps of other developers...
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Nothing about NMS is a misstep for Hello Games, it might be a misstep for the industry, as we can now see lying to build hype could make wonders for your game.

I have no doubt in my mind that if Hello Games could turn back time, they'd go about NMS marketing the exact same way, selling over a million copy at full price is no misstep for an indy dev.
 
Sayad said:
Nothing about NMS is a misstep for Hello Games, it might be a misstep for the industry, as we can now see lying to build hype could make wonders for your game.

I have no doubt in my mind that if Hello Games could turn back time, they'd go about NMS marketing the exact same way, selling over a million copy at full price is no misstep for an indy dev.
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I think they could've sold more without the lying to be honest. Without the huge backlash, people would be more willing to pick it up in the long run. The way tings are now, they can't even release another game without people laughing in their face. They screwed themselves over in the longrun.
 
theWB27 said:
Nms didn't really need to be referenced to get some bullet points across.
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Zaph said:
I understand the skittishness, especially as the games could appear similar to some, but I don't think they have anything to worry about.
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This is why they mentioned it.

A lot of the press coverage about Astroneer links the two games together and we’ve seen a lot of talk amongst our community about those connections.
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It seems like they thought and saw that a lot of parallels where drawn between them and NMS so they wanted to assuage the fears of their fanbase. Good on them.

Sayad said:
Nothing about NMS is a misstep for Hello Games, it might be a misstep for the industry, as we can now see lying to build hype could make wonders for your game.

I have no doubt in my mind that if Hello Games could turn back time, they'd go about NMS marketing the exact same way, selling over a million copy at full price is no misstep for an indy dev.
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Except, you know, the rare dev that values their integrity...

udivision said:
I think they could've sold more without the lying to be honest. Without the huge backlash, people would be more willing to pick it up in the long run. The way tings are now, they can't even release another game without people laughing in their face. They screwed themselves over in the longrun.
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Yup, I agree completely. Not to mention that this is going to be hanging over their head for their next projects as well and then I don't think they are going to have Sony's crazy marketing weight behind them either.
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
LOL. It is amazing that in a year when Mighty No. 9 came out, One Man's Lie will end up being people's biggest disappointment.
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Constant delays of a budget 2.5D kickstarter product that never looked overly fantastic to begin with aren't in the same league as an "indie" with the full AAA weight of Sony behind it scamming its customers.
 
Don't launch your game in december, stop releasing incomplete buggy games.
Also, without the NMS "scandal" the devs are thinking release the game in that state and don't say nothing?
 
legacyzero said:
Devs are taking a clear line that they dont wish to suffer the same downfall that NMS did. Making it clear that it's going to be Early Access, and the experience wont be a full one at first.

It's unfortunate that another developer has to do something like that after No Man's Sky pissed in the industry pool.

Upload me to the Atlas if old.
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Why is it unfortunate? Isn't making the content of what you're selling clear to potential customers an ideal to strive for?

Piichan said:
Am I cynical if I think the reason they're name-dropping NMS is to get more attention?
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That's kinda doubtful? It's a blog and "No Man's Sky" is not even mentioned on the title.
 
Piichan said:
Am I cynical if I think the reason they're name-dropping NMS is to get more attention?
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Possibly but if their game is being constantly compared to NMS (which it is) then name dropping it was the only way to clear the air.
 
Piichan said:
Am I cynical if I think the reason they're name-dropping NMS is to get more attention?
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Perhaps, though it's a clever way to go about it. From what I've seen the game looks like a lot of fun. And the devs had streams where they were working on parts of the game. Unlike HG the devs has been communicating things a lot on the subreddit.
 
More_Badass said:
Yes. Even in the other thread on GAF, people were bringing up NMS in conjunction with this game
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Yeah, it is normal to make a comparison. Both games look great on pre-release footage, both are community darlings (at least from what I saw, Astroneer's reaction has been phenomenal), and both are space-based.

And good for the devs to try calm expectations early.
 
Ovek said:
Possibly but if their game is being constantly compared to NMS (which it is) then name dropping it was the only way to clear the air.
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Yup.

NMS has a possible fucking ASA lawsuit in the wings.

This is uncharted territory for both indie devs and gaming in general.
 
Inuhanyou said:
:( And what a beautiful piece of concept art it was
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That's why you never ever back anything that only has concept art, regardless of who is developing

(Except when it's Harebrained's Battletech, they've proven to deliver on their Kickstarters, and have shown that their graphics and gameplay tend to closely match their art)
 
Conkerkid11 said:
The only potential MN9 had was the one and only piece of concept art shown in the original Kickstarter though. Beyond that, the game never really had anything going for it. There's no impressive pre-launch footage out there for MN9 like there is with NMS' reveal footage.
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In fairness, there was this:

D48ZJXE.gif
 
Piichan said:
Am I cynical if I think the reason they're name-dropping NMS is to get more attention?
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Yes your being cynical. Their name is currently being compared to NMS in a lot of forums and site. They are basically trying to distance themselves from NMS as they do not want to be seen like NMS. Good on them for being upfront.
 
More_Badass said:
That's why you never ever back anything that only has concept art, regardless of who is developing

(Except when it's Harebrained's Battletech, they've proven to deliver on their Kickstarters, and have shown that their graphics and gameplay tend to closely match their art)
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True...


Man God said:
Nah, the art design was always awful. Looked like Megaman had sex with a Legoman.
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Nah, the original concept art was what i really wanted all along. It felt like a real semi successor to Megaman 8 i always wished existed with modern rendering techniques, while still keeping the 2D animation styled graphics.
 
Incoming wave of developers saying "listen, seriously our game fucking sucks, please don't buy it, it's janky as shit and all of the promised features are half-baked, we really have no business launching right now but we're doing it anyway."
 
Re: the comparisons

It's to the point where I'm surprised if a thread or piece of outside media about Astroneer doesn't mention NMS. It happened before NMS launched but it's gone to 11 since then. They are asked to address it all the Damn time.

Which is sort of sad. There are some superficial and genre similarities, but the games are so very different and targeting very different game play.
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
LOL. It is amazing that in a year when Mighty No. 9 came out, One Man's Lie will end up being people's biggest disappointment.
Click to expand...

I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that Mighty No. 9 already looked like it was going to be a disaster long before it even came out. By the time it finally hit it seemed like most people just didn't even care anymore. People were suspicious of No Man's Sky's promises but I don't think most people expected things to turn out as badly as they did.
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
LOL. It is amazing that in a year when Mighty No. 9 came out, One Man's Lie will end up being people's biggest disappointment.
Click to expand...

The majority of people gave up on NM9 being good around the fourth delay or so.

And it had never had No Man's Sky consistently huge marketing push.

Sayad said:
Nothing about NMS is a misstep for Hello Games, it might be a misstep for the industry, as we can now see lying to build hype could make wonders for your game.

I have no doubt in my mind that if Hello Games could turn back time, they'd go about NMS marketing the exact same way, selling over a million copy at full price is no misstep for an indy dev.
Click to expand...

You are

1. Completely writing out of the company's point of view with a disregard to consumer's interest

2. Working under the assumption they couldn't reach better sales with a better product and/or communication
 
Must be a tough situation for these particular devs, but they handled it as classy and delicately as they could of. Good show
 
Something tells me that no matter how transparent they are, the Dec. release is going to be met with "OMG NMS 2!" and "Why is the game unfished?".
 
It's amazing how many game developers don't understand how important clear and concise communication is in business.
 
I've never heard of Astroneer until just now. It looks interesting!

And no one is expecting devs to be perfect and deliver everything flawlessly every time and I'm perfectly willing to accept that sometimes things aren't perfect (especially in early access, which is where NMS shoulda been). All I ask is that devs talk honestly about their game and not spew a bunch of hypey bullshit.

enigmatic_alex44 said:
LOL. It is amazing that in a year when Mighty No. 9 came out, One Man's Lie will end up being people's biggest disappointment.
Click to expand...

It's unfair to compare MN9 to NMS. MN9 may be kinda bland but it's a finished, full featured video game. I'd argue that it's a bit dull and falls short in some respects but it should never be listed in the same category as NMS
 
Piichan said:
Am I cynical if I think the reason they're name-dropping NMS is to get more attention?
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I doubt it. Astroneer is now a target because of No Man's Sky. Either people or going to stay away or they are going to have their pitchforks out.

I think they did the right thing making this statement. It is unfortunate it had to be said in the first place.
 
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