The long-awaited Playstation 4 space exploration title No Man’s Sky finally released this month, and while some are enjoying the game, its overall reception hasn’t been pretty. In its current state, the game is a bit of a buggy mess, with many PS4 users (and even more PC users) reporting frequent game crashes and, occasionally, needing to restart the game from the beginning to get past issues. Bugs at launch alone wouldn’t be especially noteworthy in today’s release-first-patch-later publishing culture, but No Man’s Sky has also failed to meet most gamers’ expectations. Many were expecting a practically infinite world full of things to do, but found themselves repeating the same boring tasks over and over again for dozens of hours, until they reached the center of the galaxy and (mild spoilers) essentially got to do it all over again.

For many, it’s disappointing. For others (*cough*me*cough*) it was inevitable from the start. Hello Games, the independent development team that created No Man’s Sky, is made up of 15 employees. Sure, they may have created an algorithm that mixed and matched a number of elements and created 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets (allegedly), but that doesn’t mean that said planets are wholly unique, nor does it say how many different variables can go into the flora and fauna of the game. And even if they created hundreds of variables for the planets and lifeforms that inhabit them, after a dozen hours or so, you’re going to be looking at various mashups of things that you’ve already seen.

But most significantly, given the enormous scope of a project like No Man’s Sky, there was simply no way that the core gameplay around it was going to be compelling. From a design standpoint, the developers could employ little to no structure into the game’s progression because every single player will be beginning in a different, completely unpredictable corner of the galaxy. For progression to be at all possible, each planet needs to contain essentially the same collection of elements in order for the game to remain playable. And when, after several video demos at industry shows, only about three different ways of interacting with the game had been shown, it was pretty easy to see that the emperor had no clothes.

Still, though, people expected the most epic game in all of history, and when they were given what Kotaku’s Kirk Hamilton so aptly described as “an endless puddle,” they were irate. Sony and Hello Games had insinuated that No Man’s Sky was the largest, most immersive game of all time. Had they been lied to? Was this false advertising?

Some of the blame can certainly be placed on the heads of the buyers, who bought into the hype with little actual evidence to back it up. However, Sony and Hello Games also brought the backlash on themselves by positioning the game the way that they did and overpromising. Reddit has compiled a list of all of the things that the game’s Chief Architect Sean Murray said that were not true in the released version of the game, and it’s a doozy. Murray was clearly talking about features that had not been implemented as if they were part of the game, and when he never backed up or informed the public that these features would not be present after all, he brought some of the backlash on himself.

That being said, game design is a highly iterative process, and Murray and his company aren’t used to dealing with the press. There was likely no ill intent in saying that these features would be in the game, and he probably believed that they would be at the time. It still doesn’t excuse some of his comments from the last month, or the way that he has completely avoided answering people’s questions about certain features (seriously, dude, just admit that there is no concurrent multiplayer), but it’s understandable.

What’s slightly less excusable, though, is how Sony set expectations for the title. It’s entirely possible that during the game’s initial unveiling at E3, they had no idea just how much of a splash they were making. But after seeing people’s reactions and realizing that their expectations were misplaced, Sony didn’t do anything to quell people’s excitement or put the game into perspective. Instead, they continued to feed the fires of hype, showing the game at big events and slapping it with a $60 price tag.

This last part is extremely important, and something a lot of people are overlooking. Prices aren’t just reflective of cost of production, or how much profit each unit needs to clear to break even. They’re also used to set expectations and signal to people what exactly they should expect from the product. Generally, indie titles sell for $10-30. It’s understood that fewer people worked on the title, and that it’s appeal is more niche than a AAA title. When you drop $15 on a game, it’s understandable if its shorter, or more intensely focused on one element of game design.

In reality, that’s what No Man’s Sky is: an indie game. No matter how many big Sony showcases it appears in, it’s still a niche exploration game developed by 15 people. When Sony announced the $60 price point, it threw me for a loop. The footage shown of the game had certainly looked interesting, in an experimental way, but $60? Was there more to this experience than they were letting on?

That price point is the biggest “lie” that was committed with No Man’s Sky. I cannot fault the game for experimenting with procedurally-generated content, nor can I decry a lack of content when it would have been impossible for them to create the game that people dreamed of. But the $60 price point signaled that maybe they had somehow delivered far more than one could have reasonably expected, and now people are angry.

It remains to be seen how much of an effect No Man’s Sky’s backlash will have on future Sony releases, or the way that they promote their games. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say “not much.” Despite all of people’s complaints, they still pre-ordered No Man’s Sky. That’s money in Sony’s coffers. If we truly want to curtail misleading ad campaigns and overpriced games, we need to stop pre-ordering games and hold publishers accountable. If they can over-hype their games by asking for more money, we can show our disapproval by giving them less.