We’ve talked before about No Man’s Sky, and how important community management can be, and how Hello Games may not have had the best approach. Now we have an example of what poor community management can cause.

Hello Games Hack

It appears that Hello Game’s twitter and email had been hacked, leading to this tweet:

This email, or variations of it were sent to various media outlets:

No Man’s Sky was a mistake.

The community has asked me to speak up, and I have a confession to make. The game was simply unfinished upon arrival. Our hand was forced by not only Sony, but the community as well. The constant harassment and absolute gross misconduct on the community’s part has made it hard to fulfill our artistic vision, while the pressure from Sony to release the game as soon as possible forced us to cut key features. I want to apologize for what we did not deliver on, as the game does not meet up to what our artistic vision was.

However, we do wish that the community was more understanding of our situation. Many people have asked for refunds despite our promise to continually improve and update No Man’s Sky. We are just a small studio that has poured our blood, sweat, and tears into this project. The complete lack of respect when it comes to the work we have done absolutely saddens not only myself, but the team as well. We want to improve the game to the point we dreamed of it being and beyond.

I hope everyone affected understands,

Sean Murray

After some time, it would appear that they got the situation under control…

.@NoMansSky 100% not hacked anymore… obviously those mails and that tweet were fake. Back to work 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

— Hello Games (@hellogames) October 28, 2016

It’s a little odd that Sean Murray used Twitter to publicly ask his own company if they are still hacked. Whether every one of these odd messages was the result of a hack or not, they still display how important effective community management is.

Sound and Fury, and then Nothing

To recap one point, Sean Murray and Hello Games did No Man’s Sky a disservice by pulling a bit of a Molyneux, and promising the world. They talked to everyone, and hyped the game relentlessly with all these great ideas in it. The audience was worked to a froth, and when the game came out, and was found wanting, the customers were not happy. It’s almost like when when hype goes bad in Game Dev Tycoon.

With the game out, Hello Games and Sean Murry fell silent. In the face of the vocally upset customer base, this approach simply breeds more anger. Players want to know what’s going on. Why was there the promise of being able to see other players that isn’t in the game? Sure, they replied stating they were impressed that it happened so fast, but that doesn’t answer the question people care about. For that matter, what’s with those stickers on game boxes covering the multiplayer icon?

Keeping quiet is probably about the worst thing to do in this situation. Giving out super political statements that seem to pay lip service to concerns without actually saying anything won’t help much, but it won’t make things worse. Saying absolutely nothing leaves a void that the customers will fill in. If they’re angry, then they’ll think everything in the void is bad news, making them even more angry.

Open for a Counter

Because Hello Games has left such a huge vacuum, especially after being so vocal in comparison prior to release, it’s difficult for the consumers to know how they would sound if they spoke now. Add to that the general unrest of the players, and you have an explosive setup. To paraphrase Batman: Gamers are an inventive and mischievous lot. If they feel that they’ve been betrayed they will feel justified in striking back.

Thank you, Spoony

In this case, it would appear that someone figured out a way to break into the twitter and email accounts for Hello Games, and sent out these messages to make them look the fool. It’s possible that they also intended to try to force Hello Games into a position where they would have to rebuff these claims. I doubt they thought through that level of intricacy and manipulation, though.

What was the source?

There are a couple ideas out there. This was a disgruntled employee exploiting their access, or a gamer who hacked in through a LinkedIn account that wasn’t protected with 2 factor authentication. Hello Games themselves have said it was a disgruntled former employee.  According to Forbes:

I reached out to the developer and asked them whether it was a hack. A representative of Hello Games replied, telling me that a “disgruntled employee” had made the tweet and that they were “currently trying to sort out the issue.”

It could be a former employee. It could help them get access to the accounts they used later for mischief. I have my doubts, though.

Was it actually a hack?

I’d say almost certainly. I can point to a few things that sound like an angry gamer.

• “No Man’s Sky was a mistake.” – Swinging for the fences out the gate.
• “The game was simply unfinished upon arrival.” – Confirming a conspiracy theory.
• “I have contacted you because the silence from Hello Games has been unwarranted and unprofessional” – This is an unprofessional way to make this announcement.
• “pressure from Sony to release the game as soon as possible” – It’s time to blame the publisher. Naturally.
• “made it hard to fulfill our artistic vision” – I have rarely, if ever, heard a developer talk about their “Artistic vision” for a game.
• “the game does not meet up to what our artistic vision was” – See above. This is a term many gamers use when they are upset about changes made for localization.
• “Our hand was forced by not only Sony, but the community as well.” – Let’s blame the publisher again, AND the gamers.

Too much of this sounds like a gamer who wants to jab back at Hello Games. It’s a bit of online vandalism in the name of justice. Did they do that? No. This is a poor attempt at bullying a company. The only thing this will succeed at is feeding the echo chamber of people who are already convinced of some malfeasance on the part of Hello Games.

Lessons to be Learned

People who are convinced that this message is legit were primed to think that way. The silence from Hello Games, not letting people know their thoughts on the reception of the game, means we don’t know what a message from them would sound like. As I mentioned earlier, there was a void. Some gamers were already reading into this that Hello Games are ripping people off. Those people are far more likely to believe that this is real. If they don’t think it’s real, then they are the ones to cheer on this type of vandalism.

All of this could have been avoided if Hello Games had better community management. If there had been some information coming from them, even just a little, that takes all the energy out of a prank like this. The customers may still be upset, but a message like this should be passed off as obviously bogus. It was only in the vacuum that this is even remotely possible. Even 22Cans put out information on the development of Godus, and answered criticisms after release. It looks like Hello Games took all the wrong lessons from Peter Molyneux.

Kynetyk is a veteran of the games industry. Behind the Line is written to help improve understanding of what goes on in the game development process and the business behind it. From “What’s taking this game so long to release”, to “why are there bugs”, to “Why is this free to play” or anything else, if there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please write in to kynetyk@enthusiacs.com