The No Man’s Sky train is still going strong after a couple of weeks. But it hasn’t been the smoothest ride, and fans haven’t been shy letting the developers know.
It has even gotten to the point of people seeking refunds, despite having played the game for a substantial amount of time. But while users have had mixed success on some marketplaces, PlayStation Australia is firmly putting their foot down.
A user has posted an email reply from a support ticket with PlayStation Australia, where the latter says that the company is “aware of comments online from some players expressing disappointment with the release features of No Man’s Sky”.
The email goes on to explain that PlayStation Australia — and presumably PlayStation worldwide — won’t refund any games, add-ons, consumables, PS Video or season passes “that have started being downloaded or streamed”.
But the interesting element of it all is what PS Australia says about the development of the game:
“Hello Games made choices during this development which they believed would provide the best experience for the players,” the email reads. “No Man’s Sky was intended to be something unique, vast and inventive, and we feel Hello Games delivered that.”
It goes on to say that the game will get “new features over the coming months”, but doesn’t say anything about those features nor whether those features might have any relation to the complaint submitted.
According to the user who posted the email, they also called Sony’s support line to inform them that their game continued to crash. “I also let them know that since buying it I’ve found out there is no multiplayer, which was a big selling point for me initially,” they wrote.
Sony eventually confirmed with me that the email was “official communication” from PlayStation Australia and that the policy was “in line with Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe”. They added that players would be able to receive refunds “in line with the published policy on PlayStation.com”.
When I asked specifically whether Sony had granted any refunds on technical grounds — hard crashes, bugs, software failures and the like — they said that “we do not disclose this information” but that the company complies with Australian Consumer Law.
Their published policy has one line in regards to technical errors:
Digital content that you have started downloading, streaming and in-game consumables that have been delivered, are not eligible for a refund unless the content is faulty.
Users have gotten refunds in the past from marketplaces for games that don’t work as advertised, whether it be for hard crashes or missing features. It’s clear that Sony and PlayStation Australia doesn’t see No Man’s Sky as fitting in that bracket.
Comments
100 responses to “PlayStation Australia Isn’t Making Exceptions For No Man’s Sky Refunds”
Wonder what the ACCC makes of all this.
Me too, particularly the multiplayer aspect. There are multiple interviews with the developers explicitly promising multiplayer, but now that the game is actually out I don’t believe there has been any confirmation one way or the other about its existence.
Seems like something people should definitely be entitled to refunds over. This whole game launch has been a fun explosion to watch from the outside.
they didnt promise multiplayer. they said there was going to be some multiplayer aspects and gamers imagination did the rest but as time went on the very lack of information and especially the lack of footage or details was a warning to most SANE people. gamers who preorder get everything they deserve.
I’m not going to argue with that. Consumers really need to take accountability of their own susceptibility to hype and just wait until the product is released and they know whether or not it’s something that they actually want.
Regarding the multiplayer specifically, though, representatives of Hello Games have explicitly said that there were multiplayer aspects. As far as anyone can tell this is simply untrue.
I’m not personally invested, I didn’t buy the game, but I do wish developers would be more up-front about their products. Even if they think it will cost them some sales. If you’re not making a multiplayer game then just say “it’s a single player experience” when you’re asked. It’s not that hard.
If I’m not mistaken, Sean Murray actually stated numerous times that you would be able to come across other players and physically (nae virtually) interact with said players in real time.
Correct me if I’m wrong, which I admit a lot of the time I am, but that was a straight out lie.
or it was true at the time but was cut due whatever reason, he was very clear before launch that those looking for multiplayer were looking at the wrong game. but no saidly gamers jump straight on the ‘omg he lied’ train. while I am not saying people shouldnt be disappointed, in reality the only people who ordered and paid money for the game expecting multiplayer were those who preordered and didnt read reviews before hand. both things gamers should know they shouldnt do.
To be clear, it does not bother me whatsoever that there is no interactive multiplayer in this game, and to be quite honest I steer clear of most multiplayer games because I legitimately enjoy singleplayer only games a hell of a lot more.
What does bother me is that things were promised, weren’t delivered, and there was no mention before release that said things would be cut from the game. Call it what you want, but Sean Murray lied and/or deceived ALL gamers by being dishonest in the interest of selling as many copies as possible.
There are many, many interviews with developers where they state that you can run in to other players, but due to the size of the universe it would be incredibly rare. Check out the Honest Trailer for the game for more info, because, you know, I’m not your Google whore.
Which is why devs have to be very careful about what they discuss in interviews. If a game feature isn’t definite and may be cut don’t talk about it. Simple.
when asked about multiplayer he should just have said they were investigating it rather than saying it was unlikely for people to find each other but they’d be able to see each other if they did.
Straight out misinformation whether intentional or not. No doubt they have a lot of “lessons learned” from this game.
Personally I haven’t bought the game so it doesn’t bother me, just interesting to see how things have turned out. When a large portion of your player base is unsatisfied then you know you’ve done something wrong.
I can see an argument that the simple process of uploading your discoveries is a form of multiplayer. You come across someone else’s planet, you see THEIR efforts, and if thats not multiplayer, what is it?
It might not be what people expected or wanted, but its still players impacting on other players.
It happened to me on day 2, in the first system I came across with an atlas sphere. Then the following 2 or 3 regions, where I saw the same name having been to all of them before me. Then a different name popped up as discovering something, so at least 2 people impacted on my experience.
Its very weak multiplayer, but its still multiplayer. Multiplayer doesnt just mean being able to punch another avatar in the face, its about your gaming impacting their gaming.
what you just described is exactly what Sean Murray said in different interviews this year and last year. it is a shared universe where you would see evidence of other players. he never said you could play with them. no exploring together, no fighting. he said he would consider adding PVP after launch. in fact starting in November 2015, when asked about multiplayer, he said repeatedly that was not what NMS was about. in March 2016, when he said no co-op, no traditional multiplayer, no pvp, people were so upset that some started a change.org petition asking him to put it in. How can some people fully understand that there would be no traditional multiplayer but others did not?
He did also say that the only way you can see yourself is from someone elses perspective
Why? Because too many people live the dream that they can play NMS as an MMO. Despite 99.9% of relevant information saying otherwise, THATS what they’ve decided to focus on. Made worse by a one word answer given in an interview pushing for rapid answers, which asked “is there multiplayer?” and he answered “yes”.
They try to back that up by going back to outdated interviews, and ignore more recent ones making it abundantly clear that its not an MMO, you arent going to be running into each other, and so forth, but people dont want to see that. They want to focus on the 0.1% of information that suggests an MMO world, and not the 99.9% that says otherwise.
It sickens me that the game has gotten this much negative press, when the fault lies with the consumer only seeing what they wanted to see before launch, and not appreciating everything that debunked those dreams.
I was looking back at one of the vid’s that impressed me early on. Come out of a cave, into a river system, with creatures everywhere. Big brontosaurus wandering about, with a bunch of dinosaurs getting spooked. Jump into your ship, fly into space, join a space battle.
Well, in game I got pretty close to that coming out of a cave moment, and once or twice I’ve entered systems where fights have been happening, and I’ve been prompted to join in. It happens, it just doesnt happen enough.
And for me, at the end of the day, thats the real problem. Not that Sean Murray ‘lied’ about mutliplayer, or some other lame arse excuse, just that the game becomes repetitive, and there arent enough highpoints. I expect most people are the same, they just want to find a smoking gun that puts all the blame onto the developer, and not into their incorrect assumptions on how the game will play.
It looks like it really was gonna have MP, because they had the boxes printed to say so at one stage:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-11-no-mans-sky-limited-edition-has-online-play-icon-hidden-under-sticker
In all seriousness if you want a multiplayer space exploration game, go play Elite Dangerous. That game basically caters for everything that No Mans Sky does and then some. It just comes down to users need to do research once a game has come out before purchasing and not solely rely on previous interviews of game developers “promising things”. To sum up what I am saying pre orders are kind of a gamble. Oh and Elite dangerous is pretty dam good.
Yup. 100% agree with all of that. I still want devs to be completely forthright about the product they’re selling, though.
Yep I also completely agree with you, but problem is most of the time Devs are always going to tell you what “you” want to hear just to get as many as possible on board.
Elite: Dangerous, you say…
😀
Master, Entrepreneur, Pioneer, Petty Officer, Baron.
Oh man soo many goodies lol. Top name
There wasn’t any multiplayer advertised on the box. They even covered it up with a sticker on the special edition. Not sure what the legality is of making representations through third party media organisations. You may find that because the media reported it, it wasn’t a direct representation made by the seller to the buyer and therefore doesn’t contravene the ACL. Likewise, saying to the retailer that you were misled by statements made by the devs would be fruitless, because the retailer didn’t make those representations. Ultimately the game should do what it says on the box.
That’s a good point. I guess you can only really hold them to what’s explicitly written in the product description at the location you purchased it (online or in-store).
If that were true, manufacturers could make whatever false claims they wanted because they’re not the ones selling to the consumer.
Fortunately it’s not true. Australian law with respect to deception or false claims applies to “A person […] in trade or commerce, in connection with the supply or possible supply of goods or services or in connection with the promotion by any means of the supply or use of goods or services”. The manufacturer (Hello Games in this case) is connected with both the supply and promotion of the product, and deception on their part is grounds for a claim. ‘By any means’ also includes promotional interviews done by the developers to help advertise the game.
But there needs to be some distinction between “advertisements for the final product” and “interviews about an unfinished product”. It’s a fact of life that things change as the development cycle progresses. Perhaps one thing they planned to work on turned out not to be feasible, or not fit in with the rest of the game. Perhaps they come up with a new idea and change direction.
It is by no means confined to games either. How many times have you watched a teaser trailer for a film only to find it contains footage that didn’t appear in the final edit? Would it be reasonable to consider say that I only bought a ticket to see the film on the basis of it containing that footage, so should get a refund?
Back to No Man’s Sky, I agree that the developers would be seen in a better light if they’d been more open about what was in the final game. For a long time there was so little information about what you’d actually do in the game that people were obsessing over what little info was released. So when things didn’t match what was stated about the in-development game, they reacted harsher than they otherwise might have.
No, devs also get hold to account for discussing a game and its features regardless of what state the game is in. Whether its in development and features may be cut or it the final product they’re discussing.
Its up to devs to only communicate what is actually going to be in the final game, don’t discuss features that aren’t set in stone. If crap happens and then they have to cut bits then it’s up to them to come out and clearly state that the final product has changed from their previous statements.
I haven’t bought the game but have been passively following news on it for the last couple of years and the devs have been way too vague about what was actually in the game and also misrepresented it to the point where some of what they had said is no longer true.
It’s a lesson for all game devs, no comment is better than a false comment.
I don’t think that would satisfy people either. Early on, the only information about the game was a trailer and people were constantly asking for more information on what the game was and what it did. The game was clearly unfinished at that point, so any extra information would necessarily be open to change.
And for me personally, I’d prefer developers to be candid in interviews or developer diaries rather than having them stage managed by PR. I think it would be a loss if we got to a point where they had to stay quiet for legal reasons.
@jamesh put it this way, generally we hear nothing about most games except for the trailer. Dev comments if anything only expand on or clarify what is shown in the trailer. This helps to avoid any ambiguity.
We’re already at the stage where devs “stay quiet” and have been for years, it’s been working fine so far. The problem arises when they don’t stay quiet and spread misinformation….then we get a case of No Man’s Sky.
@xenoun: and that seems to be changing these days.
You’ve got early access games that give players intermediate builds that won’t necessarily match the final product. You’ve got studios like Double Fine that document the development process of their games and release episodes of the documentary to crowd funding backers as things progress.
I don’t want any of this to disappear, so I’d be a bit disappointed if the law couldn’t distinguish between advertising and comments about an unfinished product.
The box or store site pretty clearly labels the game as “1 player”. However, if an interview where it was explicitly stated (if that exists) possibly counts as an advertisement, then you may have a leg to stand on.
https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-au/games/no-man%27s-sky/cid=EP2034-CUSA03952_00-NOMANSSKYHG00001
Er…
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-11-no-mans-sky-limited-edition-has-online-play-icon-hidden-under-sticker
And the box clearly says “1 Jugador” which I think translates to 1 player. They made a mistake with their PEGI rating at some point, seems fairly minor.
Sean Murray never said that there would be traditional multiplayer. In fact, he repeatedly said there would not be at launch – no pvp, no way to play with others. What he did say is that you could see another player if you could find them? seeing someone is not the same as playing with someone. if you expected to be able to group and explore with your friend, you did not read the multiple interviews he game this year and last year. In one interview in May 2016, he was asked “can you play with friends?” and his answer was NO. there was never any promise of true multiplayer at launch just the ability to see another player.
Yet you can’t even see another player if you stand in the same place at the same time.
The only multiplayer interactions are through naming things.
Very little.
Probably. “I don’t like it” isn’t an excuse for a refund, they’d have to prove it was significantly different from what the sales pitch stated for things like apparently missing MP to make any difference. Even then, what Murray said or implied in previous hype interviews prior to release may or may not mean anything.
Yeah. Broken or not fit for purpose is one thing. Not being the game that was hyped up from a bunch of features and wishlists is another.
I still don’t get it. I’ve seen all the same interviews and trailers and the game I played was the game I thought I was getting, plus a bunch of stuff they hadn’t shown. I really don’t know what the multiplayer that people are going on about is supposed to mean – they were pretty clear that even if there were people playing together, it would be unlikely that they’d meet or interact. And the people who have tried it have found out it’s not possible. So apparently Sean Murray is the world’s biggest liar…
People lost their shit less over Watchdogs, Godus and myriad other games that fell way shorter of what was promised. Even Colonial Marines didn’t achieve this level of utter ridiculousness. I feel pretty sorry for Sean Murray. He was pretty clear he doesn’t like the attention and interviews and he’s never got even close to Molyneux’s levels of wistful promising the impossible.
Ugh holy christ watch dogs was a pile of crap lol. I couldn’t even play more then an hour of it.
I got the game I expected and more. There are indeed things in the game that Sean Murray never said would be there. I watched the IGN demos earlier this year. Those are the same as the game we got except – we no longer can save inside a structure. The UI,the experience is exactly the same. People need to do more research before buying and stop pre-ordering. Research should not be just what you see in a trailer or someone told you. Sean Murray said a lot of true things about the game that if people had read it, they would not have bought it. Funny how those are quotes that no one is sharing.
Saying it’s “unlikely” for people to be able to meet or interact isn’t the same as just saying it isn’t possible. That’s what led people to believe that in the case they did meet up they’d be able to see each other.
I believe at some point later they backed down from what was said and started saying it wasn’t possible at all but by that point the cat was already out of the bag. Just because people see one interview it doesn’t mean they’ll see them all.
The game is utter junk and due to the constant crashes its unplayable and hello games said they cant give refunds that i must contact the one who sold it which is sony and they refuse to give refunds because all sales are final so i guess its okay to sell a broken game that every update makes much worse. i cant even enter my ship without the blue error screen appearing. It’s simply falsely advertised they said we’d meet and communicate with hundreds of species you can interact (feed, rename) the creatures on the planet but when it comes to communicating with hundreds of different life forms like what the only three in the game the gey vykeen and korvak and the atlas ball i mean come on they said we be able to communicate with a variety and when you befriend one it could make many others against you that is a feature not in the game the game is simply one word a bold face lie nothing more nothing less both sony and hello games are just crooks for allowing this game to be distributed. Worst of all i looked this up for weeks when this game was out and still all false advertising this game shouldn’t of been created. yes its fun when you first play but due to all the crashing its simply broken and worst of noone will own up to it and take responsibility. (sigh)
Sorry, but this is incorrect.
I got my refund 24 days after purchase and did so with full protections under ACL.
They will not help you along, they may even attempt to confuse or deny you, but they cannot legally stop a legitimate claim.
If you are denied a refund, contact Consumer Affairs to begin a claim
But once again, you must know 100% what you are claiming.
I’m happy to help anyone who is unsure but has a proper reason.
24 days after purchase huh?
Do you watch movies and return them because you thought it was going to be different based on its trailer?
Do you demand a refund after you’ve eaten a meal and claim it tasted different than you expected?
Its people who have refunded a game after playing it for days that really irk me. You it and played it with good intent, but because YOU didn’t like it you want your money back.
To be fair, @namiwakiru didn’t say whether the game had been played or how much had been played or whether there were other problems with it. You are right about the meal though. As long as the ingredients on the menu were present in the meal as delivered to you, you don’t really have a case. In the case of No Man’s Sky, the box didn’t advertise multiplayer.
False advertising covers more than just the box.
I’m reasonably sure that false advertising would only extend to first party advertising such as trailers, Youtube ads, etc, not articles by third parties, although I’m quite happy to be proven wrong 🙂
IANAL, so I’ll leave it to your interpretation. From the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, section 29:
This is then followed by the lengthy list of things you can’t do that constitute false or misleading representations. I interpret “in connection with” and “by any means” to include any/all sellers, promoters, distributors and manufacturers who make claims about the product. Your interpretation may differ, I’m not sure.
Your analogies are weak. Refunds aren’t being claimed based on misinterpreted expectations, they’re being claimed based on false advertising.
If you bought a ticket to see a movie on the assurance of the director that your favourite actor was going to be in it and then they weren’t, you would be entitled to a refund whether you watched the whole movie or not, because the seller lied to you. If you order a meal that the restaurant has assured you is dairy-free and then when you finish you get an allergic reaction to lactose, you’re entitled to a refund whether you ate the whole meal or not, because the seller lied to you. If you bought No Man’s Sky on the basis of Sean Murray promising that you could encounter other players, or that it had an experimentation-based crafting system, or because of what they showed in the videos that are still now being used to sell the game that contain things that didn’t end up in the release, you’re entitled to a refund no matter how long you played it for, because the seller lied to you.
The law is clear. It’s illegal to mislead or deceive consumers, even if you didn’t intend to, and even if nobody suffered any losses or damages as a result. If consumers exercising their rights under the law irks you, that’s your problem, not anyone else’s.
Problem with your theory is that Sean Murray didn’t promise that you could encounter other players, from what I interpreted what he said was, even if it was possible to encounter other players it would be highly unlikely. I am assuming due to the scale of the game.
This video has a few examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0nuW-mQ8A
“Can you run into other people, other players in the game?”
“Yes, but the chances of that are incredibly rare because of the size of what we’re building.”
“Will you be able to play with your friends?”
“Yes.”
These two statements at the very least are outright false. You cannot run into other players under any circumstances, rare or otherwise. He’s made similar assertions about multiplayer and other features in other interviews as well.
Sorry was this before or after launch?
To the best of my knowledge, nobody from Hello Games has done an interview post-launch, so all of it is from before launch. Some of it is as recent as the weeks before launch, well after the game went to gold master and they knew which features would and wouldn’t be in the final release.
Yeah righto, LOL I would only imagine that they are hiding under a very deep rock at the moment trying to weather the shit storm that has come of this. I mean I enjoyed the 30 hours I put into it then put it down as it got way too repetitive but I wont be asking for a refund mainly because I went into the game with zero expectations and low hype. I wasn’t fussed there was no multiplayer.
With that said I would have loved to see how multiplayer would have played out. Would it be all out PVP as you can kill everything anyway or would other players be immune, interesting concepts.
@benredbeard Sure, and that’s the thing. If you liked the game and you don’t feel like you were deceived, you’re golden. It’s not like the refund folks are demanding the game be banned from sale or anything, just that they want their money back because they were told things that weren’t true.
To be honest, I would have probably applied for a refund myself if it hadn’t taken me more than the 2 hour limit to figure out the game was missing things I expected it to have. But I played longer, so I’ve just put it down to a lesson learned not to get suckered in to Kotaku articles about how nice and genuine Sean Murray is, with the little ‘sure hope you like our game!’ note they reported on in the preview copies. Even now, Kotaku seems to just gloss over the problems as a minor hiccup, when everywhere else the game is getting savaged by reviewers and consumers alike.
I think Jim Sterling summed it up pretty nicely:
March 2016. Sean Murray clearly says “No, you cannot play with friends” when asked during an interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ORFgfhj_hM
He started being clear about this in November 2015. People got it. Check out this Steam comment in March after that youtube video http://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/0/412448792353173869/
So at least 5 months before launch, he said “NO” multiplayer and no you cannot play with friends. But still some people thought otherwise. Whose fault is that?
however everything before launch of games development is IN DEVELOPMENT, IE subject to change, It is a work in progress that can change and will change for various reasons, sometimes good and sometimes bad. that is the very nature of the medium. It happens on ALL games.
a mature adult doesnt need to see the words “game in development, everything subject to change” on every little thing they say or advertise. for this to hold true.
Everything before launch and reviews is ambition and hype and wishful thinking. Thats why he should never preorder and wait to read reviews to see how the game turns out.
Games development is a creative project. He said clearly before launch that those looking for a multiplayer experience should look somewhere else. That was his last statement, that negates everything he said regarding the multiplayer. The whaaa whaaa gamers that still harp on about the lie are tiresome because the information was there to make an informed purchase but they are too stupid to understand one simple reality “game in development, everything subject to change”.
That is something completely different to your food idea. Completely. Yet slightly familiar to your movie one, though once again, making movies is a creative process. what you see in early trailers are not final, often they come out while the film is still being shot or at the very least during editing. So yes on a rare moment your favourite actor might get left on the cutting room floor. That almost would never happen to the lead actors. and IF it did it would have a huge advertising campaigning reflecting this change, if the movie goer was being petty or stupid and chooses to ignore this news, he gets all he deserves.
Seeing something in an early trailer or even hearing a wishlist of features the developer would like to add to the game vs having a specific, clear statement by the developer that a feature is present are different things. The former two are implicit, the latter is explicit. Murray explicitly mentioned features as recently as a week or two before the game actually launched that weren’t in the final release, long after he was in a position to have known those features wouldn’t be in the game. The point the game goes to gold master is the point where you make sure what you’re telling people is in your game is actually in your game, or to clear up misunderstandings of what the game contains, and that wasn’t done.
The fact that boxes were already printed with the multiplayer logo on it before Hello Games decided to come clean that it wasn’t going to be available and stickers needed to be made to cover up the logo is a pretty strong indicator that they waited way too long to inform even their own publisher, let alone consumers.
the fact that the stickers were put on was a GOOD THING. if they werent put on and then and then the game was released without multiplayer then you complainers might have a point but obviously something seriously went wrong with the multiplayer and it was cut. for better or worse. what would you have rather, they released the game with a completely non functioning and broken multiplayer (just to keep those fools who dont understand about how things change in development)? or cut it and release the game without a mentioned feature and say so?
because that is what it comes down to, beyond all this hot air and the reason why I cant respect any of all this gamer rubbish… what choice is there really in that? only a fool would want a physically uncoded game launch just so those fools cant pull this “omg they lied” crap.
“You complainers” seems a bit dismissive. There’s no reason why the fact multiplayer was cut couldn’t have been announced months before the game came out (eg. when gold master was sent), but it wasn’t. Murray was still giving interviews and they were still putting out videos with content that wasn’t in the game and that by that point they knew wasn’t going to be in the game.
I’m a software developer with past game development experience myself, I definitely understand how the development process works. I know how hard it can be to give time estimates because there’s so much that can be unexpected or just flat out not work. But communication is really important, and if you have to drop a feature you’ve advertised you make sure you tell everyone that it was dropped. Hello Games didn’t do this, and kept advertising those features right up until launch. That’s the problem I have. I don’t care that stuff was cut, I care that they hid the fact and continued to sell copies on promises they knew they weren’t going to keep. That’s dodgy, and it’s illegal under our consumer laws.
so what proof do you have that it was cut months ago? before gold? before exactly what media event? how do you know it wasnt cut at the 11th hour?
my point about the ‘complainers’ because with a subset of gamers, there is never any grey area… never an understanding period, everything a grand conspiracy from the get-go. dont wait for further news, or information, dont wait for facts or opinions nope, its just straight to the conspiracy. And this gamer is over it.
You dont know when the decision was made, or why it was made, all you care is that the decision was made and that is enough to talk tough. Sorry I am too old and too much of a season gamer to know this happens on every game that comes out now. the only difference is ‘the crime’ and the devs. In the passed months we have seen it on Overwatch, we have seen it on Deus Ex to name just a few… Game dev X did Y=Grand Conspiracy=Backlash. Like I said, it happens all the time, just the crime is different. I used to solely blame game devs now I equally blame gamers and their hysteria. I just imagine how good the world could be if gamers took that passion for right wrongs and used it to stand for real world issues that matter.
@blakeavon It wasn’t on the gold master because people played and tested the version of the game that was on the disc, before the first patch. The game broke street date in a ton of places, it was pulled apart and analysed like crazy because the junkies over on reddit were completely obsessed with the game. The guys that did that told everyone that several of the features weren’t in the game, and they were ripped apart by zealots who didn’t want to hear that the game might not have been the second coming.
You’re right, we don’t know when the decision was made. But we have evidence to make an educated guess. We know it wasn’t on the disc version of the game, so was either cut or hard disabled prior to the gold master. We know that multiplayer was mentioned on physical boxes that were printed in some regions, and we know that Sony usually manages the manufacturing/printing of games and packaging for the products it distributes. Anecdotally, I know from my past jobs that physical boxes tend to be printed around the time of the gold master, usually within a month before or after depending on printer schedules. We also know that the logo was not printed in some other regions, which indicates they told Sony midway through the manufacturing process. This doesn’t give us a specific date, but it does give us a window within which we can presume with a reasonable degree of confidence that Hello told Sony about the feature being cut. They may well have cut it internally months prior, but they didn’t tell Sony until manufacturing was already under way, and it wasn’t on the disc.
Are you sure you’re not confusing general gamer entitlement that affects every game with legitimate frustration about being deceived with No Man’s Sky? I don’t remember anyone complaining about features in Overwatch that were promised and not delivered, nor the new Deus Ex for that matter. There were complaints about both those games, but the reasons were different.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to simply dismiss all complaints against all games as being frivolous just because some (or even many) of them are.
Maybe nobody’s complaining about Deus Ex or Overwatch because all the focus is on No Mans Sky 😛
By multiplayer – do you mean the ability to play with friends? If so, it was not cut. It never was intended at launch. He said so multiplayer times. check out “Sean Murray talks about Multiplayer” in March 2016 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ORFgfhj_hM. Can you play with friends? No. He clearly says no and explains why. It was a design decision. It is irrelevant what he said in 2014. He made it clear this year before the game went gold.
Unless I’m missing something, Sean Murray never definitively ruled out Multiplayer. Yes he did say that it was highly unlikely to happen, but his interviews always left the door open for interpretation that it was possible in game. This is the problem everyone has with it. If he had come out and actually said “No there is no multiplayer component.” then everyone would be happy and this would not be an issue. If you advertise that a feature is going to be in your product (which he did in interviews), and then you remove that feature without actually confirming that the feature was cut, then you’re opening yourself up to problems.
As for whether this is a case for a refund, it depends on if you can convince the relevant parties that what you purchased is actually not what was promised. I certainly dont think you can justify it after playing for a significant period of time.
To be fair though, the trailer that is still on the Steam and GMG pages for No Man’s Sky has footage of a bunch of stuff that isn’t in the release game.
That’s not pre-launch in development. That’s right now, a month post launch.
For what it’s worth, I’m disappointed with the game but I don’t hate it. It was okay. However, underneath the screeching , there are people with legitimate points.
Thanks Frank, I’m glad you agree with me.
Cheers mates
Gave you an up-vote for knowing your consumer rights and for advocating persistence in having those rights honoured by (sometimes reluctant) suppliers.
As for what your refund reveals about your opinion of the game, I disagree but respect it all the same. Me, personally, I love No Man’s Sky!
Good, don’t let anyone take that love man. If you enjoy the game, then you enjoy it. (Said that the first day I started discussing my issue with the game)
I’m upvoting you, because you are one of the few who understands our differing opinions are not a reason to clash.
You know that’s partly the reason I decided to get a refund and help others?
Initially, I didn’t plan to get a refund because I accepted my role in the whole mess (Didn’t ride the hype train, but did get swept away a little)
But I did want to discuss the game and the overall controversy, place my rational two cents.
People wouldn’t go for it, apparently that kinda thinking makes you an entitled brat.
Even various journalists jumped on board with everyone mocking the complaints and reducing them to ridiculousness.
Then I figured, bugger it. There is no way you will get a refund for getting bored of a game and returning 3 weeks later.
So the only other way is to have a legally valid complaint that I can back up.
(Edit: Which I already knew I had, but didn’t have the enjoyable motivation to begin with)
So now I’m helping others, but only if they have a proper reason.
The amount of shit being lost about this game is absurd.
If you can’t load the game or it is plagued by crashes, get a refund.
The rest of these crying hatebois need to take a god damned chill pill. I can’t imagine those whinging about a lack of multiplayer threw their hands in the air and stopped playing the MOMENT they realised. If you did, kudos, go get your refund. But you probably didn’t.
you cant get a refund they say sorry all sales are final and sony says it to its simply broken
So maybe the ‘Real’ game is getting your refund. A truly immersive experience with financial consequences.
I put in about 30 hours and realised that I didn’t really like the game so I stopped playing. Not going to ask for a refund though. 30 hours is pretty decent play time for any game and it wasn’t all bad. The music was pretty cool.
Fair call, I would have done the same if the circumstances were slightly different.
(I actually wasn’t going to get a refund originally)
Now I’m just enjoying the anger.
Well, that’s clearly breaking Australian law.
I got 152 hours in and it randomly blew away my save game data and started again……
You sure you didn’t reach the centre?
One of the first unbiased articles from Kotaku regarding No Man’s Sky.
Props, Mr. Walker.
Edit: I am a fan of the game regardless of the countless bugs, flaws and broken promises. Thought I’d clear that up.
Lesson #1? Don’t buy day one.
I like Australia’s consumer laws, but letting people return a product because they changed their mind reeks of pandering to the entitled. Before I buy things I research, read and speak to people. I rarely have ‘buyer remorse’.
I also really don’t get the amount of shit this game is copping. Sure, it isn’t the second coming or anything, but is is pretty much what is on the box. People screaming otherwise are mostly basing their evidence of hyped up rumors from reddit.
The boxes themselves were printed with multiplayer on the back in several markets, which had to be covered up with stickers after it turned out the game didn’t have it. And while some people are certainly being melodramatic, most of the backlash against the game isn’t over disappointment or misinterpreted expectations, but features that were claimed to be in the game and then weren’t – ie. false advertising. That’s not buyer’s remorse, that’s purchases made based on claims by the manufacturer that ended up being false. Deceptive practices and false advertising are illegal here and in most western countries.
You reference features but the only valid one I see is multiplayer apparently being MIA. What else is missing?
He made firm statements on a few other features I was looking forward to, including a real day/night cycle based on planetary motion, inter-faction conflicts and an experimentation-based crafting system, similar to Minecraft.
You realise what you just described, isn’t covered under the ACL, right?
Are people so desperate to diminish people’s legal rights, that they need to keep acting like something works different than it actually does?
Didn’t base anything on reddit….I based it on THE LAW
Were you replying to me?
Buyers remorse isn’t covered under ACL? Well, um… OK, not what I was saying.
Diminish peoples legal rights? Well, um… no? Don’t think I said that.
My reddit comment was about the hype that many used to influence their decision to purchase the game as opposed to actual on the box labels. Your retort is you used THE LAW (go Dredd). I am glad you use THE LAW to help you make purchasing decisions.
Ha ha! Thanks, I genuinely didn’t think anyone would get as much as a kick out of the dramatic usage as I
My bad, perhaps I misread.
You said getting a refund now because you changed your mind, reeks of pandering to the entitled.
I was saying you cannot get a refund for those reasons, it is impossible.
Yeah, I stand by my comment on the diminishing though.
You make it very clear what you think of people who have a complaint or see a course of action beyond the self flagellation being suggested by many.
Of course my retort is the THE LAW, that was the point….
I was expecting some repudiation of what Sony’s official statement seems to be, not re-heated claims and counterclaims about what No Man’s Sky the game was or is.
Come on ladies and gentlemen, this is as clear as it’s ever going to be – in Sony’s eyes we sit (well) below the auspices of EU law here, not strictly AU rules and regs. Argue that.
From someone who runs a retail business that complies with ACL at all times I just want to weigh in on your rights as a consumer.
The product has been mis represented by the founder of hello games Sean Murray. Whether or not it was done with all intentions of features being put into the game and having to be cut due to time constraints or whatever. Hello games should have issued a correction. Notice to its retailers both digital and physical and in turn those retailers should have had an obligation to put all correction notices at the physical placement of the product.
Just because it was in an interview online does not make a claim any less misleading in the eyes of the ACL and its governing bodies. You would expect that in interviews from 2 years ago a lot would change. But a reasonable person would expect in interviews after the game went gold for there to be much weight in the statements. Thus when talking about the physics of the planets, multiplayer, factions, all the features Sean Murray claimed would be in the game even after the game went gold a reasonable person would expect them to be in game. Therefore when the game ships without those features you have been sold a product that the manufacturer has misrepresented.
From my own experience with NMS I requested a refund after ~30 hours of play. Due to the nature of a orchestrated generated game. You cannot be sure that you are simply not seeing everything the game has said to offer without giving it a darn good go. Steam said they would not be issuing a refund and I spoke to my local Consumer affairs body and they said they would look into my claim. About a week later I noticed the game was no longer in my games list and I had the money credited into my steam wallet. No communication from steam.
Yes you can say people overhyped this game and created expectations that were never made by hello games and that is true there is no denial. But at hat same time the game was also misrepresented. Wether you think people are being entitled or not doesn’t change their rights under Australian consumer law. And for Steam and Sony to say what they are saying is misleading a customer about thier rights under ACL and that in itself is a breach of the ACL.
Should switch your buying to GOG if you have a choice – 30 day refunds, no other limits, and no DRM so you can easily just link it to Steam if you want the overlay.
I eventually had to go to the ACCC after having my refund my pushed back. Lo and behold, my money is returned, and No Man’s Sky has a nice little padlock there so i can’t play it on my ps4.
You should send them a support request about not being able to play NMS…..
They will love that.
Did you do this via the online form? If so what did you put for business name and ABN?
Yep. Sony Australia Limited (ABN 59 001 215 354)
Thank you
Mind if I asked what you wrote?
I’m basically claiming false advertising that features are missing that were advertised in the lead up to launch and regardless of whether or not Sony believes that hello games created what they set out to create it doesn’t change that the game was falsely marketed and advertised
I basically just said how I purchased the game and was surprised to find a lot of the content that was promised was not in the game or was lied about; i.e. multiplayer. Gathered a lot of information from onemanslie.info, gave the ACCC complaint reference number (this was my second contact with sony about it, first time i went to accc since they said no); linked to the videos of Sean Murray saying mp was available and whatnot; advised that I felt it fit under 3 of the 4 major problem criterion under Australian consumer law:
A product or good has a major problem when:
it has a problem that would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about it
it is significantly different from the sample or description
it doesn’t do what the business said it would, or what you asked for and can’t easily be fixed.
How long did it take to go through? Did you ever receive contact from the ACCC or Sony after submitting?
I sent through a 3 page complaint on Monday
It’s funny, one of the first games I’ll buy once I get a neo will be no mans sky. Even after all the ragging on it, it’s still a game I think I’ll like.
What did you say out of interest? I called Sony a week ago saying I wanted it to be refunded under consumer law due to misleading and false advertising – they never got back to me
I received that same email. Because I’m pig headed and love a good sh!t stir I’ve continued answering back. I’m up to replay 7. It’s starting to go around in circles but man it’s good fun. I suspect they’re compelled to keep answering as it’s an open logged case.
Jump on the ACCC bandwagon. The more complaints the better.
https://www.accc.gov.au/contact-us/contact-the-accc/consumer-complaint-form
Sony Australia Limited (ABN 59 001 215 354)
onemanslie.info
Done. Cheers zeitxgeist.
The refund policy is a clear breach of Australian Consumer Law which I suspect is already under investigation by the ACCC. I’ve referred it onto them in any case.
It is somewhat amusing that people buying the game hoping to later get a refund by faking technical issues they read about on game forums have been refused. Kudos to Sony.
Also the multiplayer claims are particularly idiotic, if its almost impossible for any individual player to meet another player how does the lack of that functionality come close to being a refundable fault?
The only annoyance I have with the game is that when searching for hints or interesting discussions by other players actually playing you just get posts by a bunch of morons most of whom seem to not be playing and probably should have been playing Star Citizen Beta or Eve Oniline in the first place.
Because Hello Games/Sean Murray has said multiple times, unequivocally, you will be able to play with your friends.
That is misleading and deceptive conduct and falls under 1 of 4 ‘major problem’ criterion under Australian consumer law.
Look at his face when he’s saying these things. The look on his face says “this is going to bury my career”. Released the game at basically full price without any advance release copies for reviewers. Gg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz1oFNUZ-P0 (“No Man’s Sky marketing conduct could be illegal”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-tgaE37UE (Sean Murray lying compilation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuz3WETd4ug (Missing features compilation)
Because we’re all entitled to a product that is representative of what BS we’re being fed. We have been spun a string of lies about, what is being touted as a AAA release, NMS. It’s rubbish. It’s buggy and it’s a completely boring uninspired blight on the gaming landscape. The number of patches coming out that simply fix the crashing and terrible game experience as it stands is unbelievable. It’s the 2016 version of Daikatana. Many promises made with very little to actually show. And to those morons that just sit there pretending that NMS is even a little bit good, good for you you’ve found value in this pile of shit.