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+++
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title = "Pre-Orders: The Case of No Man's Sky"
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date = 2016-08-25
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["pre-order", "grim dawn", "no man's sky"]
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+++
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[No Man's Sky](http://www.no-mans-sky.com/) is getting a lot of heat recently
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because, well, the game is not all what the developers promised. And a lot of
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people are putting the blame on pre-orders and whatnot.
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<!-- more -->
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Thing is, this is not a problem with pre-orders. This is a problem with a
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development company not getting up with the times.
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Example: [Grim Dawn](http://www.grimdawn.com/). Although not a pre-order thing
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per-se, the game was on a Kickstart. Today, the game is polished, fun, have
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lots of stuff to do but nowhere there is someone claiming this "pre-order"
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thing ruined the game.
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The difference between Grim Dawn and No Man's Sky is that Crate, the
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developers of the first, continuously delivered versions to get feedback.
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Falling through the world? Ok, we can fix. Game doesn't run on your rig even
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when you have the minimal specs? There is something wrong with our engine.
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That feature? Yeah, it's too big for now, we'll work on it later.
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Not on this list, but ArenaNet did something close to that with Guild Wars 2:
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People who pre-purchased the game -- an "extreme" version of pre-order --
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could participate on the closed beta events. Those events, although not
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spawning through whole maps, would allow players to experience some part of
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the game and return feedback. They would even claim "we just want to stress
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the servers, so weird things could happen" and people were fine with that.
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Hello Games, on the other hand, did all development behind closed doors. Sure
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they are a small company, but there was nothing stoping them from actually
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doing some open beta test or whatever to receive feedback. Well, except on
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thing: Sony.
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Sony injected money on Hello Games for their first title (I was about to claim
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"a lot of money" but heck if I know how much they funded) and wanted it on
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their console. Now, consoles do not have a "here, play for testing" or "signup
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for this and we'll add your console ID in our database and you can download
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the game". To keep the things hyped, no one could see the game before release.
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No previews, no betas, no nothing. Feature wasn't fun? Who would know, it's
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scrapped now. The engine blows up on certain configurations? Only way to check
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this is after the final release.
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So, again, it's not a problem with "Pre-orders are bad and you should feel
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bad". This is a problem with a company not keeping up with the times. A lot of
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companies are now sharing things beforehand to get larger feedback than their
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friends and family: Microsoft is continuously releasing Windows versions
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through their "Microsoft Insider" program, which anyone can join; Apple is
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giving betas of all their OSes for anyone who wants to test them. The idea of
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"many eyes makes all bugs shallow" finally caught up and people realised it
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was right.
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But, apparently, Hello Games + Sony didn't.
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