Play No Man’s Sky for 50 hours then get a refund makes you a thief says former Sony man

No Man’s Sky refunds have been a hot topic this week and former content strategist at Sony, Shahid Kamal Ahmad, has chipped in with his thoughts.

In a series of tweets he outlined his thoughts on the whole NMS debate which prompted Steam to place a special message on the store page.

“If you’re getting a refund after playing a game for 50 hours you’re a thief. Here’s the good news: Most players are not thieves. Most players are decent, honest people without whose support there could be no industry.

“I’ll say it again. 50 hours. How long do they need, 5 billion hours? They still wouldn’t have seen it all. We’re not talking about a consumer product in the factory sense. We’re talking about a work of art. You can’t just treat it like a widget.

“In forty years of buying tens of thousands of pounds worth of games, to my knowledge, I have not *once* asked for my money back.

“As a customer and a player before I was ever a developer, I’d only have asked for my money back if the game was broken at boot time.”

It begs the question, how long is too long? Have NMS players been so misled they should be eligible for a refund no matter what? Should they not just have stopped playing? Were Valve right in offering refunds to some players who had gone over that two hour refund limit?

One thing’s for sure, No Man’s Sky’s was over-hyped and consumers should maybe have held off before jumping in if they were dissatisfied with the final game. With Hello Games not sending out review codes in advance it certainly didn’t help the situation.