The whole situation with its release just seems to confirm what many people in the gaming industry already knew very well – a developer really only gets one shot at making a good release.
It doesn’t matter that we live in an age where people have easy access to download patches for their games, and that developers can work around the clock to fix post-release issues. When somebody pays for a game, runs it, and encounters problems within their first hour of playing, that will tarnish the reputation of the game forever.
It would be curious to see what Hello Games will do in the future, as the studio has lost a lot of trust from their fans. They used to be seen as a “good” developer, partly due to their indie status, but after this release, they will surely face a lot of trouble if they decided to make another game.
On the other hand, Sony will probably be more reluctant to support them financially this time – as would any other major publisher, for that matter – so they will largely be on their own. The sales of “No Man’s Sky” should have at least earned them some funding for whatever project they want to take on in the future though, so they might be able to navigate the industry without the backing of a large company from now on… although it will definitely not be an easy task.