No Man's Sky recording fewer than 1000 concurrent players on Steam

[midian182]

For all that No Man’s Sky is a technical marvel, it’s been a bit of a disaster on every other front. It seems that 18 quintillion planets doesn’t automatically make a game fun; recent stats show that less than one thousand concurrent people are now playing it on Steam.

Before No Man’s Sky was released, the hype surrounding the game was out of control – part of the reason why Hello Games’ Sean Murray received death threats when it was delayed. But the promise of a universe that you’ll never want to leave has fallen flat. Fewer than 1000 concurrent players just over one month after launch isn’t good for any title, and has put it below the non-English language Nobunaga's ambition: Souzou SengokuRisshiden. At its peak, No Man’s Sky hit over 212,000 concurrent players.

As you can see from the chart below, the number of people playing the game dropped dramatically in the few short weeks following its release. The situation wasn’t helped by the non-existent multiplayer element, which Murray said No Man’s Sky would include.

At the end of August, it was reported that a large number of people who had purchased the game were asking for refunds, despite having played it for many hours. The situation led to Steam’s announcement that no special refund exemptions are available for No Man’s Sky.

Murray promised that future DLC would add more to the game, and would basically give players more to do. There was also talk of base-building and being able to own much larger ships. However, the usually active Murray has been quiet on Twitter since August 18, when he tweeted about the team’s focus on customer support. It may be that Hello Games is busy bringing new features to No Man’s Sky, but the silence is worrying.

We're totally focused on customer support right now. Then we'll move onto improving and adding features to the game ?

— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) August 18, 2016

It would be great if Hello Games does manage to produce something that brings players back to the game, but it'll take something pretty special. Murray said before its release that No Man's Sky would be “super divisive” and “not for everyone,” he was certainly right about that.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/66418-no-man-sky-drops-below-1000-concurrent-players.html

 

[davislane1]

No Man's Game.

 

[TomSEA]

Man, I'm glad I didn't pre-order this game. I was really tempted, but saw enough to realize it could be one of the greatest games ever made or a total disaster so held off until I could see some reviews.

My wallet is thanking me now.

 

[Nobina]

Those poor 1000 people.

 

[Tibeardius]

I've been playing a bit. Mods help smooth out the rougher parts but the story is nonexistent. There are no real goals or rewarding moments. It has a lot of potential but I don't blame anyone for waiting around for it. If they could morph this into a first person KOTOR game I'd never put it down.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Not really a game. Lacks story. It is an activity. Hope they can make it a game.

 

[yRaz]

It was always over hyped, but the hyping was done by the players not the company.

 

[davislane1]

Not really a game. Lacks story. It is an activity. Hope they can make it a game.

A story and a game are two different things. NMS is a flop because its gameplay/activity loop is terribly boring.

Imagine playing Monopoly, but instead of using dice everyone just moves up a space every turn.

 

[Jibberish18]

Not really a game. Lacks story. It is an activity. Hope they can make it a game.

A story and a game are two different things. NMS is a flop because its gameplay/activity loop is terribly boring.

Imagine playing Monopoly, but instead of using dice everyone just moves up a space every turn.

The moment you mentioned Monopoly I fell asleep.

 

[EEatGDL]

It was always over hyped, but the hyping was done by the players not the company.

Nope, it was absolutely the company. All the promises, false claims and statements, what was shown as gameplay in events... it was absolutely PR-generated hype -and I wasn't hyped for this game, it seemed to have unrealistic and far-fetched features as Molyneux's usual claims- that post Reddit compiling what was promised and came true is like the written objective evidence of PR-generated hype.

 

[yRaz]

Nope, it was absolutely the company. All the promises, false claims and statements, what was shown as gameplay in events... it was absolutely PR-generated hype -and I wasn't hyped for this game, it seemed to have unrealistic and far-fetched features as Molyneux's usual claims- that post Reddit compiling what was promised and came true is like the written objective evidence of PR-generated hype.

If you saw this game as anything other than space Minecraft from the start without multiplayer then it's your own fault for being disappointed

 

[davislane1]

Not really a game. Lacks story. It is an activity. Hope they can make it a game.

A story and a game are two different things. NMS is a flop because its gameplay/activity loop is terribly boring.

Imagine playing Monopoly, but instead of using dice everyone just moves up a space every turn.

The moment you mentioned Monopoly I fell asleep.

The analogy was even more effective than I thought. You may pass Go.

 

[Uncle Al]

LOLOL .... well, you got to admit, they did an excellent job suckering in quite a few people, but like the chart shows, the patient had one heart beat, then flat lined!

 

[ForgottenLegion]

Over hyped. Over promised. Under delivered. Zero multilayer. With terrible PC performance to top it all off.

At this point after being bitten a couple of times *cough*colonialmarines*cough*, I've become quite good at spotting video game turds.

 

[Trillionsin]

I wanted to like it, but... idk. I found a duplication glitch, took advantage of that, that ruined whatever the game had left.

 

[nickstricks007]

Glad I waited for user reviews before purchasing. Saved myself $60. Despite the graphics being somewhat dated, Spore is basically what this game should have been. While not having near the possibilities of planets, Spore has the freedom and near endless amounts of customization to your creatures, vehicles etc, terraforming planets, colonization (albeit not very in depth, but still a nice addition) and quests with the expansions. It has cool moments like when you run into something you created, especially if it happens to be an 50 foot epic version of a creature.

 

[robb213]

Steam family sharing saved me from spending on this mess (would've waited past release anyways). Nice to have friends who buy every single game that comes out

 

[Trillionsin]

Glad I waited for user reviews before purchasing. Saved myself $60. Despite the graphics being somewhat dated, Spore is basically what this game should have been. While not having near the possibilities of planets, Spore has the freedom and near endless amounts of customization to your creatures, vehicles etc, terraforming planets, colonization (albeit not very in depth, but still a nice addition) and quests with the expansions. It has cool moments like when you run into something you created, especially if it happens to be an 50 foot epic version of a creature.

I read part of your comment, I'd like to note that Steam will actually refund to your Paypal account, possible your bank account now. I didnt know this for awhile either... but I used paypal and they refunded to my paypal account in a matter of hours, like the next day.

 

[JayT1803]

I took advantage of STEAM's refund policy.

 

[TomSEA]

This game is rapidly reaching Daikatana failure legend.

 

[mattfrompa]

"totally focused" what are you 15?

 

[Binsmokin]

It was always over hyped, but the hyping was done by the players not the company.

NO it wasn't the players, it was TOTALLY the developers hyping it up and promising the world. They didn't deliver, in fact, they straight up LIED to people about the game. The developer was even on stephen colbert show telling us all that it will be a world wide multi player platform where you can bump into anyone else playing the game. That was all a lie. Look at their twitter account. All tweets from them stopped after taking everyone's prepaid money. Nothing will be put into this game, they will not even attempt to improve it. They are not wasting their time. They took the money, ran and they straight up LIED to us to GET that money. Shameful

 

[cookiesnap]

It was always over hyped, but the hyping was done by the players not the company.

Honestly you're wrong I'm not one of those asking for every single thing he mentioned but the complete lack of multiplayer, while he presented the multiplayer as possible even if rare, is a deal breaker and anyone who bought the game for that reason should get a refund if he wants. You speak of minecraft few comments down, well on minecraft you have the possibility to do multiplayer and in my perception it would have been a deal breaker even there and if not refunded just another scam, like NMS. The refund policy has been rather arbitrary, they just think they can get away with that because "it's just a videogame", they didn't even pay for any shipping cause it's digital so the way I see it they're running with the money and are completely comfortable with the idea of not refunding the copies to those who bought the game for the multiplayer aspect. If it was a durable game and he simply delivered the important features he talked about no one would have reason to talk and refund, like many other successful games, instead he straight lied and talked as much as he could pre release and now is dead silent leaving us with our own conclusions.

 

[Wendy Oltman]

The game has an infinite universe and still somehow has almost no content. And the content it does have is significantly more repetitive than your average game. It's no surprise the player pop. tanked. People will only be able to fly to planets and pick up rocks for so long before they get bored and quit.

 

[JuanP]

Thanks God for Steam and their money back guarantee , played for 1hr 59min and I wasn't lovin it.