No Man's Sky Dev Received Death Threats Over Delay

That's just truly pathetic. With the incidents at NL and now this my faith in humanity just shattered again. Can't gamers just get along, especially with developers when the end result is a better game?

And tip to developers, don't even ANNOUNCE a project until it's gone gold. It ain't worth the hassle of constant nagging for updates and potential delays that may occur due to outside factors.

I know delays are disappointing but this is just ridiculous!!!

It does justify ny thoughts though that games shouldn't be given a specific release date until the developer/publisher is 99.99% certain of meeting that date - I know that in very rare occasions, unforeseen circumstances not in the developers/publishers control (maybe from the manufacturers or distributors) can crop up. Even if that means a set date isn't actually announced until a month or even several weeks before it hits the shelf. However once a date is set, I personally would prefer a publisher to stick with it - not at the expense of the quality of the game of course but if its not announced until they are certain of making it, then it shouldn't be an issue.

Delays are easier to take from a gamers perspective if they are vague - like Q4 2016 to Q1 2017 but when they have a specific date, its almost a verbal contract that this game will arrive on that date. I know many that book time off work for example so its frustrating - not enough to warrant 'death threats' of course.

I bet no developer/publisher wants to delay the release of their game but neither do they want to release an unfinished product - especially as reviews etc can make or break a game and those reviews stick long after release. First impressions count too - not just from reviewers but gamers too - word of mouth etc can also help make or break a game.

Delays seem inevitable these days but they could lessen the impact by not being specific with their dates - aiming for a Q3 or even a 'June' release and then getting delayed is far easier to take than getting a specific date and then getting delayed - especially a month before!!

Bunch of spolit brats if you ask me! Glad it's been delayed would be nice if they could find out who they are and somehow ban them from ever playing the game! Probably impossible but would still be fun!

@get2sammyb The big N fan Base has practically split in two and started shouting at each other on value for money, Game quality and couldn't learn people have opinions.

I do not agree with what has happended. But its not been handled well. The story was leaked everybody knew about it but then it was days later before they said anything about the delay. It is short notice to delay the game being as it was only a month away from laaunch and now its delayed by months so they must have known months ago they would never meet this deadline.

some people are horrible.hiding behind they're computer's and threatening people is ridiculous.the game is delay so what.game's get delayed all the time.it's still coming.it's jackass gamers like those.that gives real gamers like us a bad name.a game get delay to have a better experience.people who do those things are cowards

Absolutely disgusting. You can be passionate about games but sometimes things can happen in life that put everything into perspective. I make a living from writing about and playing games and I would never in a million years take games as life-threateningly seriously as these idiots. Unreal.

As someone who is obsessed with release dates, if a game date slips and you don't like it, then don't buy the game. Threatening people doesn't accomplish anything as far as I can tell, they aren't going to release the game any sooner just for you.

I haven't read any of the threats, but I think @dryrain probably hit the nail on the head, don't delay a game 6 weeks only 4 weeks before release, it had to be obvious weeks ago they weren't going to make that date if the game wasn't close to going gold. Having bad news leak, and then having that leak be true, is very upsetting to people. Get out in front of it, always.

And I'm not sure of the situation here, but some of the people may be upset about paying for things in advance. In the US we usually only have to put down $5, but I've noticed in other countries people pay the full amount for a pre-order. And body who pays in full for a game due out in a month, and then all of a sudden they have neither than money nor the game for an extra 6 weeks, has a right to buy upset. That's false advertising, and there are usually laws against such things. So when these companies do delay games, they should ALWAYS compensate the purchases. Maybe a $5 in app credit, or a free download of a season pass, something. B/c if you have all of my money and I have a delivery date, I deserve to be compensated for the time you gave my money but I don't have the game, you essentially broke a contract.

And of course, don't give a date on a game and don't meet it. Give a season, give a month now, give a date. Of course companies will never do that, BECAUSE THEY WANT OUR MONEY UP FRONT, but if they don't want to upset people, don't take money until you KNOW you can uphold your end of the contract. I'm not saying death threats are ok, and I try to never play the victim, but if you ask people for their money and don't give them something in return, well then this is what happens unfortunately.

Has there ever been a known case of a game developer who received death threats actually getting assaulted? Because it seems this type of story gets reported a lot. Do film directors or book writers get sent as many death threats?

I'm a bit disappointed the game is delayed but really people?! Death threats?! Come on it's just a damn game! In the mean time go outside and look around! Is it worth threats? I hope whoever did that gets banned from playing it.

The way a lot of people are nowadays, this doesn't surprise me.

@Neolit completely agree.

Good man Sean....nice way to deal with these idiots....

one comment for the idiots get a bloody life. Or just watch more porn while you sit in your sad little world. Either man up & be the hard man or jog on.

As a retired firefighter who has had bottles etc thrown at a distance. No one has actually stepped up for the fight.

From the 16bit era we have had idiots. In this hobby. Games delayed there a bloody thousands of games to play in the meantime We aren,in the wii u ghost zone. Someone that has bought virtually every console except XB1 (its just too ffffffffff big & ugly)
Remember people die every day in accidents, war zones, terrorist attacks, disease & 101 other ways. so is 6 weeks so ffffffffffffff bad in your life that you cant wait. While your waiting run of to syria & go threaten isis & have fun.

What I find ironic is if they were to actually act upon their threat and kill him, then they would never get the game they were threatening for since the creator is no longer creating it. That my friends is the height of of total insanity...

I really am interested in this title but just like all games including Uncharted 4 I'll be adding my very own personal delay to this and getting it for £25 in about 6 months , nutters total nutters.

Riddle me this, How vill zey patch your game, if you kill zee patchers, hmm??

Dont wanna see these jerks if they buy the game and ends up not living up to their hype.

We all love to play games, but some "spoiled brats" really need to step back and take a good look at themselves. The same idiots would do the same thing if the game was released on time with bugs in it. Good luck to Sean Murray and his team; hope it all works out.

Well, I won't lie. I understand the frustration when a game is delayed, over and over and over again. While I can understand why it happens, it frankly is downright annoying when they say 'this date,' 'nope sorry this one,' and just weeks before 'oops again.' Obviously though the delay is to improve the game, and hopefully it will all be worth it. The idiots sending the death threats probably could do with a visit from the authorities just to shake them up a little bit and teach them to not act like dumb but these publishers who put this on the dev teams also need to freaking stop giving release dates. Do what Bethesda does, when the game is nearly ready announce it and give it a date then. If we're talking console manufacturers, I get that they have to move hardware, and hyping exclusives (full or timed) is one way to do that, but there has to be a better way to go about things than this. Announce early if it's a must but stop giving release dates and save the development team the headache of dealing with clowns on social media.

_{Language -Tasuki-}

Everyone has anonymity, This is inevitably what will happen.

I'm not condoning the behaviour, but we really need to get a grip on these threats with real sentences, rather than just stating some of the extreme behaviour.

Will this person be even given a caution? Probably not and there in lies the problem.

@themcnoisy
I'm sure some of these are from kids who's parents don't even know what the hell is going on. A little knock on the door from the feds might very well do them some good going forward.

or just disconnect their broadband

@Gamer83 I would not like them to do what Bethesda does release a broken game and even broken DLC.... They take ages to fix a game look at Skyrim and all the Fallout games. The problem now is that people put so much preasure to get releasedate and for a game to get out. And to be fair all those rumours make this happen.

To go ontopic there is no excuse with death threats.

@BLPs Oh no, people have disagreements about stuff. The horror!

I'm on NL pretty much every day, and the place is pretty civil. Things get a little heated when the subject of censorship crops up, but the place has not "split in two."

@BLPs Ah, NL=Nintendo Life, I think the split started to happen when they censored Fire Emblem and SMT x FE for America and arguing over Star Fox Zero.

@MadAussieBloke I know how to fix that, let's buy you some more games!

Are these actual death threats, though? There's a difference between lashing out angrily and happening to use the word "kill" in their rant and an actual threat to kill someone that seems to have any kind of believability to it. Right now if I said "I'll kill David Cameron if he ruins the NHS," that isn't really a death threat. If I sent a letter to his house saying "I'm going to be at your conference tomorrow and I'm going to shoot you" then that's more of an actual death threat.

@Xaessya There are disagreements, but "split in two" is hyperbole at its finest. If he wants to see what a site that is splitting in two looks like, he should head over to NeoGAF, which has apparently turned into a soviet-style totalitarian regime where you're banned for saying pretty much anything.

@Matroska Until you get used to it and learn that 99% of the people behaving in this way are stupid manchildren who are too cowardly to hurt anyone, having anyone post messages about how they're going to kill you is scary.

@get2sammyb
Unfortunately the question is... Why should they care? Nothing happens. It's the same with these idiots who were attacking PSN everyday it seemed like and bringing it down for people. If there's no repercussions why should anybody care? Now granted, there's far bigger things in the world for authorities to worry about than a DDOS attack on the PlayStation Network, but I'd say death threats are pretty damn serious, even if it's from somebody who has absolutely no means of being able to do anything.

The funny thing about death threats is that if someone were actually serious about it, they wouldn't send you a pre-emptive message before they commit the crime. If anything I see death threats as a sign of success.

I'm glad that Sean Murray has had the sense to just laugh it off and make a joke about it.

And I wouldn't worry about the state of humanity or anything like that. People have often been outraged and ridiculous about all sorts of things - it's just that the instant access to air out disturbed and irrational thoughts just gives us a glimpse into those parts of people's minds. They're muppets. End of.

To @get2sammyb's credit, you reported this in a straight sensible way. You weren't sensationalist, you didn't call for a witch hunt, you just gave us the facts and let us make up our minds up about it.

@Bad-MuthaAdebisi: Cue the Japanese stock footage!

"then maybe reconsider what you're doing with your life".
This had me in stitches because I thought the exact same thing when I saw the article title.
Game delayed? Send a death threat! Thats sure to make a dev work harder, and its a perfectly reasonable response…
Some folks need to grow the hell up.

Now that's what I call a toxic fan base

But they'd probably send him death threats if the game was broken, you can't win with these morons -_-

Disgusting, I to was wholly dissapointed, and still am, when I heard of the delay. Death threats?! Over 6 weeks?? It's not even a long delay, geezus. How about you outside and enjoy the summer, more than likely the game will be so good none of us will be seeing the outside world for a long while after it releases, better get as much outside playtime in as possible before it releases lol. People suck.

These people should be traced and dealt with. But more likely it's stupid kids. More the reason they should be traced and punished.

Seems completey reasonable to me - I mean the pizza I ordered was 10 minutes late the other day so I cheerfully told the guy I would kill him when he eventually turned up. Then the same when I was caught at a till while the cashier had to reboot the system as it had stopped.

Those people wouldnt do it in the real world because they wouls get arrested. So we should report stories ans ridicule them. The question of whether a game should be late does not ever justify this behaviour. Sean Murray wasn't asking for it because he delayed a game. That is like saying I should expect to be burgled because I have nice things or that I should expect a squeeze because I have a nice butt (admittedly the last bit hasnt happened ever).

Didn't Kotaku's Jason Schreier received a death threat as well, for reporting on the rumour before it was officially announced? People genuinely scare me sometimes.

Wow people badly want space minecraft eh?

I agree this whole thing could have been handled better BUT, there is nothing worse than spending £50-60 on a badly finished, essentially broken game and then having to wait for patches, I have no problem waiting a little longer for the game to be ready, polished and in full working order!...and as for those sad degenerates who have left death threats, GROW THE F*CK UP AND GET A LIFE!

Release a buggy unfinished game to a marketing date (ala Ubisoft) : "We hate you for Day 1 patches and ruining a beloved Franchise for profit forecasts! Die"

Postpone a game to give it more polish and the best possible product : "I have so little going on in my life, that 6 weeks wait for play a single title has ruined my life, die!"

Why would any dev want to work on games?