Normally I would agree with you and Legacy and all of the game's defenders, in that I normally don't think it's right to claim a refund after many hours of playing a game. However, in the case of NMS I feel that any request for a refund is completely warranted, and it would appear that Valve and Sony also agree. It's a rare case, but my reasons are:
1. Very false advertising by the devs. We all know this by now, even the people who love the game have to admit that Sean did a lot of lying and that the game is missing a LOT of what was promised and even shown with gameplay before launch. All you need do is watch the trailers on the Steam page to find at least a dozen things that are not in the game.
2. Buggy release. For many people the game still crashes often, even on the PS4. NMS is like one of the most crash laden console releases in the past several years, and performance on the PC is really bad. Technical issues are always a valid reason for a refund, and NMS has a plethora of them.
3. Radio Silence from Hello Games. The missing feature fiasco would be so much less of a fire if Sean and his team were simply talking about it, explaining the missing content and the reasons for it, hell saying anything about it. But they have completely ignored it and put their heads in the sand, which honestly smells like they were just shooting for a hype driven cash grab with NMS. I mean truthfully, all of Sean's false statements and all of the disingenuous gameplay footage shown over the past few years followed by complete silence really does make them appear to have gone for the disrespectful and dishonest cash grab here, milking the game for all they can based on their false pretenses and run with the money afterwards. All they need to do is explain themselves, just talk about it, but instead they have turned their backs completely.
Note that I think it's great that many NMS players are happy too, if you enjoy the game then that's good, but the reasons for not liking it and wanting your $60 back are too real and prevalent. If NMS had been a $15 or $20 game then this would be an entirely different situation, but at a AAA price this just can't be allowed.
No, in the very public and high profile case of NMS a message needs to be made by the industry that this type of behavior can not be tolerated, and thankfully both Valve and Sony together along with the players seem to be making that very statement against Hello Games. It honestly gives me great respect for both companies and a refounded hope for the future of video games, and I for one am glad that the NMS backlash is tangible and real.
I'm someone that's been following the development of NMS pretty closely over the years, had high hopes for it and so on, and the current state of the game is very close to some of the things I expected from it (like the very minimalist approach to gameplay and storytelling in certain aspects) while others are not, spent over 50 hours on it so far and the fact that I can fly somewhat freely (more with mods) around planets is very pleasing to me, but even so, I have to agree that the game is an unfinished mess with obvious heavy cutting down on features, whether it's from feature creep, biting off more than they can chew or whatever, and that's something that the consumers shouldn't have to just accept.
I would like to add though that, while I understand the outrage that's going on right now, I just can't see it as Hello Games just cashing in and running away with the money. I would, if Sean and the team just stopped working on the game completely and didn't communicate
about anything at all. No patches, no further work on the game.
But they're making patches and are uploading them somewhat regularly. Maybe I'm understanding the whole "cash grab and run" thing differently, but to me that means they would willingly deceive everyone (including Sony) for years while working on a smaller and less feature-heavy game, knowing they would get the backlash even 2 years before release, and they would most probably damage their connections with Sony, gaming media at large and most importantly the consumers.
This, to me at least, makes Hello Games sound like someone like Digital Homicide, which in all honesty I can't believe to be true. It's almost suicidal to damage your reputation, no matter how small or young your studio is, especially with a publisher/platform provider like Sony. I've seen and read interviews from different sources about the studio, even about their work on the Joe Danger games, about the atmosphere in the studio, the people involved etc. and it just seems a bit too far fetched for these different sources to all be "in on it", to paint this attractive picture of the underdog dreamers that tried to make something new and interesting. Sure, maybe it's just mob mentality and one source copied the other, "they all lied" etc. but objectively, I just can't see that.
So I'm not saying the game is flawless, or even very good, I'm just arguing the validity of the "cashgrab" point.
Also, and this is not something I expect people to give a damn, especially at the $60 price for an unfinished game, but I believe context matters, even if the result ends up pretty much the same, at least for better understanding how these problems occur in the industry and how to avoid them.
So just like most people are saying that Sean lied through his teeth over the years, twirling his mustache, some might also say that they genuinely believed or even had versions of the game where these features existed in one form or another (as it's often the case in game development), but as time went by they realized things aren't looking good, they need more time, better solutions, PS4 hardware just isn't going to cut it for the way their engine works, and
they made the wrong choice. They decided to scale down some of the features, make hasty and radical changes to some of the core gameplay mechanics and logic so that they would at least have a workable, somewhat coherent thing at release. The rest would be added post release, more features would be tweaked. I might even go as far to think that they might've been naive on certain things, like hoping they might add certain mechanics post release while everyone is still getting to know the game, so nobody will notice (with implies the game on release will work almost flawlessly and without bugs and performance issues, which in this day and age is insane, or rather not very realistic or responsible). They might think that radio silence is better right now, not making things worse and that their work will speak for them in time, when and if they release major updates in the months to come. Maybe I'm naive and will indeed eat crow, but I believe Hello Games at least have the will to continue working on the game for the time being.
But you know what would've been infinitely better than the shitshow right now? Delaying the game, regardless of the outrage of another delay. Not going retail on PS4. Honestly communicating in a delay (and admitting to themselves) that the game just isn't at the quality level it should be, even at the danger of reducing sales eventually. Not being as cagey on certain gameplay aspects (like the multiplayer thing), better to say there's nothing there (no matter how much you wish to implement the feature) and then maybe pleasantly surprise everyone with adding that post-release. Just embracing the ongoing-development nature of this early access survival exploration game.
This sound easy in retrospect, and maybe they dug in too deep, got into debt, invested too much time, money, work to make such a drastic switch to a different model while most probably alienating a lot of people, being somewhat deluded that things will work out somehow. That happened anyway, but they got some good sales out of everything, which only paints an even bleaker picture on the whole thing. But the point is that, to the consumer, this shouldn't matter. I can emphasize with your problems, really I do, but I should also be aware of them. I can invest $60 (or more for CEs etc.) in something I think will be alright for now, for me, and that you might update in the future. But you should make it clear that this is what this is, otherwise you are being deceitful, no matter your intentions.
So I'm just saying that their actions and radio silence can also mean other things, but it's questionable if it even matters to most people, since a lot of damage has been done.
