How No Man's Sky Influenced The Game Awards

The poor PR of No Man’s Sky at the 2013 Game Awards reveal the dangers of overhype.

The last few months have been a hard lesson for No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games when it comes to the dangers of overhype and mismanaged player expectations. However, it turns out Hello Games isn’t the only developer learning a valuable lesson.

As you might recall, No Man’s Sky made its worldwide debut during a seemingly innocuous interview at the 2013 Game Awards (the debut actually served as a rare bright spot in an otherwise poorly planned and poorly structured show). The show’s host, Geoff Keighley, recently spoke to Polygon about the interview and how it ultimately had a negative effect on the appeal of No Man’s Sky:

"I have thought about the story of No Man's Sky a lot. Did we create this black hole of hype that the developers couldn't pull themselves out of? Some of that was authored by me. There is a good moral of that story and it's part of what I'm trying to address this year; to have developers be more transparent about the state of their game."

To that effect, this year’s Game Awards show (set to air on December 1st) will focus on putting more context towards the games that are featured; context which includes not only interviews with the developers, but actual gameplay sessions as well. How well the format will work remains to be seen, but at the very least, the changes made will hopefully help future developers avoid falling into the inescapable cycle of overhype.

For more on the latest Indie Obscura news, be sure to check out our previous coverage of Super Mario Run’s iOS release date, how Final Fantasy 15 is getting a mobile MMO spin-off, and learn more about Overcooked's tasty new DLC expansion

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