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In an ask-me-anything session on Reddit, Hello Games' Sean Murray offers insight into why developers can't say much even as fans clamor for answers about their game.

Bryant Francis, Senior Editor

August 9, 2016

2 Min Read

“REAL TALK - so obviously the hype is terrifying. I mean, I have had this hanging over me for three years since we announced. I get like 3 hours sleep a night, but like I can't sleep even if I was home so... It's catch 22, if we hadn't announced when we did, we probably would have quit the project without the community supporting us...but god...should I have passed up Colbert? Or E3? I dunno.”

- Hello Games managing director Sean Murray

Few games have been subject to the amount of pre-launch excitement (and sometimes threatening fervor) as No Man’s Sky. As Hello Games managing director Sean Murray writes, it’s a giant contradiction on how you’re supposed to live with this amount of enthusiasm and demand for your game while also balancing the logistical and legal needs of game development. 

In an ask-me-anything session hosted yesterday on Reddit, Murray talked about the thin line he and Hello Games have walked for the last three years while working on development for No Man’s Sky. It’s a fun read, but Murray also tries to remind readers who can’t see into the world of game development that sometimes developer secrecy isn’t the symptom of a conspiracy, but rather a result of legal requirements. 

“Whenever devs are tight-lipped, it's normally just because they literally, legally, can't talk about a thing,” Murray writes. "Often for instance lots of devs will have a clause that says ‘you literally can't say the name of platform X’.” 

“Knowing this it's really funny watching interviews where devs are squirming trying not to the word Wii or whatever when being asked about some industry thing.”

For more stories from the development of No Man’s Sky, be sure to read the full AmA. (A brief note, former Playboy writer Mike Rogeau has clarified that Murray’s story about the Playboy interview didn’t happen.)

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2016

About the Author(s)

Bryant Francis

Senior Editor, GameDeveloper.com

Bryant Francis is a writer, journalist, and narrative designer based in Boston, MA. He currently writes for Game Developer, a leading B2B publication for the video game industry. His credits include Proxy Studios' upcoming 4X strategy game Zephon and Amplitude Studio's 2017 game Endless Space 2.

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