I have received loads of death threats this week, but don’t worry, Hello Games now looks like the house from Home Alone #pillowfort
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) May 28, 2016
Sean Murray–founder of Hello Games, the company developing the ambitious space exploration sim No Man’s Sky–has received numerous death threats since news broke of the game’s delay. What had at first been a rumored, reported delay from employees at a GameStop who leaked an internal e-mail, has now been confirmed to be a nearly two month delay. No Man’s Sky will now be releasing on August 9th instead of June 21st. That apparently didn’t sit well with any fans of the game, as they lashed out at more than just Murray.
What it’s like to write about video games on the internet: pic.twitter.com/a4yRcGMbsA
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 27, 2016
Jason Schreier, who was the first to break the news over at Kotaku, shared an image of a threat he received over Twitter DM. Do note that Schreier had absolutely nothing to do with the game’s actual delay; he simply reported it, breaking the news to folks. As of this morning, three days after being reported, that user’s account remains active, and Twitter has not taken any punitive action against them.
In addition this, the fan subreddit dedicated to the game, /r/NoMansSkyTheGame, was “engulfed in metaphoric flames,” as one mod’s writeup of the situation reads. A few of the folks on that sub lashed out at Kotaku, Schreier, and “clickbait journalism” while searching for confirmation of the delay. After confirmation came in the form of a PlayStation Blog post, things seemed to calm down.
This isn’t to say that the whole subreddit was engaged in lashing out at the sources. More people were engaged in decrying the actions of the few angry ones. Since then, the #LoveHelloGames hashtag has popped up on Twitter as an attempt to show love to Murray. To its credit, it seems to have worked, as Murray tweeted about feeling much more positive about development since the initial death threats.
Night y’all! Thanks for the kind words. Wrapping up a 35 hour coding weekend, and feeling fresh. Good things are happening
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) May 30, 2016
(via Polygon)
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