After four years and numerous setbacks, No Man's Sky developer reveals game is finally complete

[midian182]

After four years, a major delay, a flooded studio, legal problems, and even death threats aimed at the developers, PC and Playstation 4 space exploration adventure No Man’s Sky is finally finished.

Sean Murray, head of UK-based developer Hello Games, posted a group selfie yesterday showing the team celebrating reaching the long-awaited milestone, with one member holding what’s presumably the world’s first finished copy of the game.

"It's happened. No Man's Sky just went gold . I'm so incredibly proud of this tiny team. 4 years of emotions," Murray wrote. Going gold, for those who don’t know, refers to when a game is ready to be sent off for manufacturing and distribution.

It's happened. No Man's Sky just went gold. I'm so incredibly proud of this tiny team. 4 years of emotions pic.twitter.com/YJoI6JVgxq

— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) July 7, 2016

No Man’s Sky was beset by problems throughout its development, starting with the flood on Christmas Eve 2013 that destroyed the team’s office. Despite the destruction of so much equipment and the team being forced to move to temporary cramped locations, Murray promised that the disruption wouldn’t cause No Man’s Sky to be delayed.

In June of this year, Murray announced that the game wouldn't be ready for its original release date of June 21, as it needed “more polish.” But it seemed that some people just couldn't wait to start exploring the virtual universe; both Murray and Kotaku reported Jason Schreier received death threats following the news.

To cap things off, Murray then revealed that Hello Games had been locked in a three-year legal battle with British broadcaster Sky TV over the use of the word “Sky” in the game’s name. Thankfully, an agreement between the two companies had finally been reached. Sky had already forced Microsoft to change the name of its online storage platform from SkyDrive to OneDrive.

We’ll find out if No Man’s Sky was worth it all when it’s launched in North America release on August 9.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/65510-after-four-years-numerous-setbacks-no-man-sky.html

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Perhaps it will change its name to "No Man's Space" - except " " is probably copyrighted where it is essential in its separation of 'Sky' and 'TV'.

August 9!!

 

[stewi0001]

Sky TV, we're here to make sure to sue anyone that uses the word Sky.

 

[lipe123]

So who actually still uses optical media?! Thats the most disturbing part of that picture for me.

Put it on a memory stick jeeeeeeeez

 

[Capaill]

Sure, let me just pop round to the local games store and buy a memory stick of the game...

The guy probably wanted to show something with the name of the game on it. I doubt it's gone to production yet so a DVD with the game name scrawled on it will have to do for the selfie.

 

[HarryLemon]

Woohooooooo!!! =D

 

[davislane1]

Why is everyone but Cloud Imperium Games releasing Star Citizen games these days?

I look forward to playing this iteration.

 

[Mithan]

Sky TV, we're here to make sure to sue anyone that uses the word Sky.

They have too, or they wont be called Sky TV for long.

 

[TomSEA]

This game is #2 on my future buy list (behind Battlefield 1). BUT...I'm not going to pre-order and will wait until it's been out a few weeks to see some professional and user reviews

Simply been too many issues and delays involved. It has both "potentially awesome," and "potentially a disaster" written all over it.

 

[Questors]

So who actually still uses optical media?! Thats the most disturbing part of that picture for me.

Put it on a memory stick jeeeeeeeez

We are not all cool hipsters like you. You know, like everything is so 21 seconds ago!

 

[Jack007]

This game is so hotly anticipated that I know people would get lost in it like what happened when there was everquest

 

[BSim500]

So who actually still uses optical media?! Thats the most disturbing part of that picture for me.

Millions of people. Most computers sold = full size 15.4" laptops which come with them, as do a large chunk of pre-built (Dell, HP) desktops. Self-builders are a minority. Most HTPC's do (because despite the "streem-ing" hype, you're going to look silly if a friend turns up with a Blu-Ray/DVD that isn't on Netflix and your Home Theater rig is so "modern" it can't even watch movies from more than one source). Streaming itself has a wildly reduced catalogue vs what's available on CD/DVD/BR - great for Justin Bieber & Michael Bay fans, not so great for anyone with more varied tastes. Many people use one as a secondary cold storage data backup - a not so stupid thing for those of us who've seen a surge from an indirect lightning strike blow straight through a surge protector and completely fry the entire contents of a 4-drive RAID1 NAS box...

Seriously this weird optical hate is getting to be another one of those "OMG Who does X anymore" Youtube comments section thing, where X turns out to be a perfectly normal activity that millions of people do quietly everyday without declaring it on a tech forum every 5 minutes thus giving the illusion it's "unpopular" to anyone who expects people to Tweet every time they buy a Blu-Ray or rip a CD...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

So who actually still uses optical media?! Thats the most disturbing part of that picture for me.

Put it on a memory stick jeeeeeeeez

You might have heard of these consoles, they are called the xbox one and ps4. they have sold tens of millions, and they use *gasp* BLU RAYS!

Also, have you seen the price of memory sticks? a 64GB memory stick is much more expensive then a single 50GB blu ray disk. When you are printing millions of copies, that is a LOT of money.

 

[ZypheREvolved]

Why is everyone but Cloud Imperium Games releasing Star Citizen games these days?

I look forward to playing this iteration.

Go Star Citizen GO

 

[Tarqueth]

Let's see, Sky TV was founded in 1990. I've been using the word Sky since the early 70's. Think I need to sue Sky TV. How stupid is this really? TV and a computer game both have the same word in it and the courts didn't laugh at the station and throw it out?

 

[toxicfiend]

Let's see, Sky TV was founded in 1990. I've been using the word Sky since the early 70's. Think I need to sue Sky TV. How stupid is this really? TV and a computer game both have the same word in it and the courts didn't laugh at the station and throw it out?

Yeah sky tv and no mans sky sound soooo alike don't they this is what you do when you have to much money like the Murdochs do.

 

[trgz]

Let's see, Sky TV was founded in 1990. I've been using the word Sky since the early 70's. Think I need to sue Sky TV. How stupid is this really? TV and a computer game both have the same word in it and the courts didn't laugh at the station and throw it out?

Yeah sky tv and no mans sky sound soooo alike don't they this is what you do when you have to much money like the Murdochs do.

Hang on, wasn't there someone called Murdoch in the A-Team and Gorillaz? Ah, I see what they did there to avoid a lawsuit, they changed or dropped a letter (Murdock/Murdoc) - perhaps No Man's Sky could have been No Man's Skye? (cue lawsuit from Scottish board of tourism...)

 

[djforeman]

Does anyone remember "Skynet"?

 

[Joe Average]

Sky TV, we're here to make sure to sue anyone that uses the word Sky.

However did GM manage to name one of it's convertibles Sky???

 

[Milkyjoe]

I though you only sued, when your competitor is selling a similar product since that would actually effect your profit

 

[lipe123]

Millions of people. Most computers sold = full size 15.4" laptops which come with them, as do a large chunk of pre-built (Dell, HP) desktops. Self-builders are a minority. Most HTPC's do (because despite the "streem-ing" hype, you're going to look silly if a friend turns up with a Blu-Ray/DVD that isn't on Netflix and your Home Theater rig is so "modern" it can't even watch movies from more than one source). Streaming itself has a wildly reduced catalogue vs what's available on CD/DVD/BR - great for Justin Bieber & Michael Bay fans, not so great for anyone with more varied tastes. Many people use one as a secondary cold storage data backup - a not so stupid thing for those of us who've seen a surge from an indirect lightning strike blow straight through a surge protector and completely fry the entire contents of a 4-drive RAID1 NAS box...

Seriously this weird optical hate is getting to be another one of those "OMG Who does X anymore" Youtube comments section thing, where X turns out to be a perfectly normal activity that millions of people do quietly everyday without declaring it on a tech forum every 5 minutes thus giving the illusion it's "unpopular" to anyone who expects people to Tweet every time they buy a Blu-Ray or rip a CD...

It's not weird at all, optical media is CRAZY easy to damage. It's super slow both for reading and writing and needs to be stored carefully out of sunlight etc. Even doing all of the above older discs will stop working properly after a few years.
Might as well use tape storage then, same problems and same reasons its not used anymore.

Flash media is not that expensive, its fast durable small and offer lots of space.

What other computer thing from the early 90's is still around? -nothing except CD-rom/DVD-rom.

Also taking this way out of context, if I just wrote a game and got it ready for distribution I would not trust a dvd to arrive undamaged at the publisher, but a flash drive can literally take a beating and still work just fine.

 

[Raoul Duke]

So who actually still uses optical media?! Thats the most disturbing part of that picture for me.

I do. Quite often in fact

 

[BSim500]

It's not weird at all, optical media is CRAZY easy to damage. It's super slow both for reading and writing and needs to be stored carefully out of sunlight etc. Even doing all of the above older discs will stop working properly after a few years. Might as well use tape storage then, same problems and same reasons its not used anymore.

Many optical discs from the 90's work fine. And that's recordables. If you only buy rubbish then use them as Frisbees for the dog to catch, yeah they will be "easy to damage". And if you wanted long-term unpowered data retention durability, modern 16nm TLC NAND is the last thing you'd use. Games don't come on recordable discs though, they come on pressed discs and literally last decades. I guess you've never seen that funny slot in the front of hundreds of millions of games consoles (which is what forms the bulk of games sales)?... And yes tape drives are widely used for cold storage, just not by consumers.

Flash media is not that expensive, its fast durable small and offer lots of space. Also taking this way out of context, if I just wrote a game and got it ready for distribution I would not trust a dvd to arrive undamaged at the publisher, but a flash drive can literally take a beating and still work just fine.

Flash media is economically nonsensical for individual game distribution due to simple cost. Bulk pressed discs are literally a few cents each vs $10-15 for 32-64GB sticks = 250x cost disparity. And you're obviously not a developer because if you were you wouldn't even be talking about selling your $5 Indie game on a $10 USB stick... (And the cheapest flash drives are often fragile as hell).

What other computer thing from the early 90's is still around?

Ignoring the fact Blu-Ray came out in mid 2006 (18 months younger than PCI Express & HDMI), to answer your question about the 90's : Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, keyboards, mice, gamepads, USB, RS232 headers, PS/2 ports, 3.5mm headphones / microphone sockets, SPDIF out, ATX PSU's, ATX/mATX standard size motherboards & cases, webcams, HDD's, heatsinks, cooling fans, printers, scanners, JPEG's, GIF's, BMP's, MP3's, Win32 API, DirectX, OpenGL, mobile phones, digital cameras, GPS, GSM, cable / DSL modems, routers, switches, fibre optic, and the entire WWW and x86 global IT infrastructure...

As I said the hate some spew out at the mere sight of an optical disc is insane. The pic in the article is obviously some internal development snapshot not a retail boxed copy someone's forcing you to buy whilst burning your Steam account and laughing heartily in your face, yet still triggers off some "anti-hipster-hipster" thing in some people...

 

[Capaill]

They have too, or they wont be called Sky TV for long.

So, did Star TV sue the makers of Star Wars?
Did Fox TV sue the makers of Never Alone for calling a character Fox?
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if that happened seeing as Murdoch owns both Sky TV and Fox TV.

I thought it wasn't possible to copyright a single dictionary word.

 

[Mithan]

So, did Star TV sue the makers of Star Wars?
Did Fox TV sue the makers of Never Alone for calling a character Fox?
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if that happened seeing as Murdoch owns both Sky TV and Fox TV.

I thought it wasn't possible to copyright a single dictionary word.

Instead of being sarcastic, go read about how Copyright Law works. It may sound stupid, but there is a reason why they HAVE to sue, as stupid as it sounds.