There's no doubt that the devs turned No Man's Sky into a good game, well-worth the asking price. There's little doubt that Sony and unexpected hype were the driving forces behind the over-promising and under-delivering. God help me though, I just can't let it go. I cannot let go that Murray apologizes for literally everything except what he actually did wrong. He's sorry for getting ahead of himself, he's sorry for believing his own hype, he's sorry for letting Sony push the studio too hard. What he hasn't said, in the hours upon hours of interviews he's done since release, is apologize for looking us in the eye and telling us things he knew weren't true. Not once has he apologized for the moral failure of making the conscious choice to lie to us. And I looked, boy did I look, because I wanted to believe that he was sorry for that. But he isn't.
So I encourage people to play No Man's Sky. It's a good game. But I will never, ever give Sean Murray my money again.
You have put words into his mouth I think, though it sounds as though you have looked harder than me. I can imagine a version where he truly believed the features he said would be in the game would make it in time for launch if only he tried hard enough. Instead of lieing, what he did was fail to deliver. The difference is intention and I personally think it matters more than how things unfold in most circumstances.
He said the game had multiplayer when it not only had no netcode of any kind but none was being worked on. That is a lie.
Their advertising materials including their post-launch Steam page featured large-scale space battles, rivers, formation flying with wingmen, etc were so egregiously false they triggered an investigation by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority.
So I encourage people to play No Man's Sky. It's a good game. But I will never, ever give Sean Murray my money again.