I think they can. I think that if Hello Games, especially front man Sean Murray, come out and talk to us, their audience, the gamers who have been behind this game will understand. Is it going to be easy? No, not by a long shot. But in order to garner the goodwill they almost certainly need to keep from falling apart, I suggest they start talking soon.
No Man's Sky is a game that needs no introduction. You all know what this game is and by now have likely made up your minds about it and about what Hello Games has done with it. The majority, vocally anyway, believe the game was over promised. While I certainly think it was overhyped, I don't know about promises. It's surely true that some features that were announced have been omitted from the final release, I believe these were due to the small team size. I'm sure in the coming months, features like true multiplayer and real space battles could be added. But in order for anyone to care down the line, Hello Games need to come out and say something.
Take Ubisoft and Rainbow Six: Siege for instance: when Siege was initially announced, Ubisoft promised both single and multiplayer modes, and while it's true that there are single player missions in the game, the overwhelming majority of the content is centered around the multiplayer. Still, Ubisoft came out and spoke to gamers about what they had planned for the game and gave us timetables outlining when we should expect new updates. Now, Rainbow Six Siege has become one of the fastest growing e-sports shooters I know, having gained a substantial following in less than a year.
I'm not saying timetables and updates fix all the problems but they go a long way to helping gamers understand what happens during development and why certain things don't always make it into the initial release.
Anothe Ubisoft example can be found with The Division. We all know what I mean when I say The Division. Tom Clancy's The Division launched to a multitude of problems. Crashes, characters missing, bosses disappearing and other game breaking bugs made the game unplayable for many players and turned a lot of people off. But Ubisoft Massive also made a ton of blog posts and announcements talking players what was wrong and how they planned to fix things. Even though it's lost a chunk of its initial player base, The Division has undeniably made a huge recovery since it's rocky launch just six short months ago. Though I doubt it'll hit Destiny numbers in terms of dedicated recurring players, it has its own dedicated players who have fallen in love with what The Division has evolved into. That transformation wouldn't have been possible if Ubi Massive hadnt gotten out in front of the problem and told players "This is what wrong, this is what we're doing to fix it, this is when you can expect a patch."
So, what can we take away from these two examples? Well, one: Ubisoft has a bit of a marketing problem, but more importantly two: that talking to your players can have a huge impact on the longevity of your game. If you have problems at launch, features had to be cut, or there are just issues that nobody anticipated, talk to the pkayers. Of course there are going to be those jackholes that want to get up in arms about everything but if we only listened to the loud Joe Angry gamers out there, we wouldn't have even half of the great developers that we all love. Not to give those people a pass, that kind of toxicity is absolutely unacceptable but you can't let it put you down.
To bring this all back around, can Hello Games redeem themselves after No Man's Sky's really rough launch? Yes, if they talk to their players and tell us what happened. I'm sure there are many gamers who will stick around months after the game's launch so if HG keeps us updated and keeps updating the game with new features, I know this game can last a good long time.
