No Man's Sky developer being investigated for false advertising

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

Things continue to trend in the wrong direction for Hello Games as the No Man’s Sky developer is now being investigated for false advertising.

A spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK recently told EuroGamer that they have received several complaints about misleading No Man’s Sky promotional material and that they have launched an investigation into the matter.

The publication notes that the ASA has the power to have advertisements that go against its code of conduct taken down and can even prevent them from resurfacing. Should an advertiser refuse to comply with an ASA ruling, it can impose sanctions like asking web search companies to remove offending paid-for search ads.

The ASA said that since the investigation is ongoing, they can’t delve into the details. Over on Reddit, however, one of the alleged complainants has published details of a response received from the ASA with regard to a complaint about misleading trailers, screenshots and general game information posted on the game’s Steam page (which means Valve has been dragged into the matter).

Areas the ASA is allegedly investigating include promotional videos and screenshots regarding user interface design, ship flying behavior, animal behavior, size of animals, large-scale space combat, flowing water and aiming systems, just to name a few. Even the quality of the game’s graphics has been called into question.

Permalink to story.

 
Didn't this game have an open public beta? I can't recall for sure if it did or not, but if it did, you'd think most (if not all) of these deficiencies would have been noted then by players.

I understand beta is not final game, but still...seems like so much lacking from what was promised, SOMEONE would have noticed and pointed it out.
 
Years ago you had games last for weeks but excuses like graphics quality hasn't got anything to with it they are just lazy devs .....I dream of games like Half-life, Crysis, Bioshock and Farcry where are those games to name a few ,,I know most are classics but it seems the devs in those days knew how to make good games which is less than fifteen years ago ,,,I heard someone finished this game in a few hours ,,,,sigh
 
It's about time the ASA actually got off their collective fat arses and did some work. Where have they been for the past few years, just letting any old tripe count as an advert.
 
Years ago you had games last for weeks but excuses like graphics quality hasn't got anything to with it they are just lazy devs .....I dream of games like Half-life, Crysis, Bioshock and Farcry where are those games to name a few ,,I know most are classics but it seems the devs in those days knew how to make good games which is less than fifteen years ago ,,,I heard someone finished this game in a few hours ,,,,sigh

No Man's Sky is a pretty long game, 20-25+ hours. Those you named are barely over 10 hours.
 
Years ago you had games last for weeks but excuses like graphics quality hasn't got anything to with it they are just lazy devs .....I dream of games like Half-life, Crysis, Bioshock and Farcry where are those games to name a few ,,I know most are classics but it seems the devs in those days knew how to make good games which is less than fifteen years ago ,,,I heard someone finished this game in a few hours ,,,,sigh

Witcher 3 just came out last year. Best game I've ever played? Yep.
 
Seriously? After all the negative review they finally decided to check this punk out? Sort of like investigating the murder after the victim has been buried ..... not totally useless, but close! Very close!
 
Finally someone is doing something about lying devs.

The problem is most people who were interested NMS have likely already bought it. The ASA telling them to clean up their Ad. isn't really going to change anything in the long run. Until somebody goes to court and gets hit where it hurts, nothing will change.
 
Didn't this game have an open public beta? I can't recall for sure if it did or not, but if it did, you'd think most (if not all) of these deficiencies would have been noted then by players.

I understand beta is not final game, but still...seems like so much lacking from what was promised, SOMEONE would have noticed and pointed it out.

There wasn't any public access to this game until release.

I don't think journalists even got hands on until super close to release either.

I knew this would happen, didn't even bother to preorder. The size of the team and their promises just didn't add up.
 
I'm not against them investigating Hello Games/NMS; I mean, they did choose to price the game with a AAA price tag ($60usd) - but what about devs like EA? They huge devs needs to be investigated too, imo.
Also, I did enjoy NMS, just don't think it was worth $60 that I had paid for it; perhaps $15? Mmmm maybe even $10.
 
Someone should also investigate Activision and it's COD developers for falsely advertising COD as being fun because 90% of all players hack those games to the limit, making it not so fun.
 
Someone should also investigate Activision and it's COD developers for falsely advertising COD as being fun because 90% of all players hack those games to the limit, making it not so fun.
Fun is subjective and it's not Activisions fault that players hack games. If you're not having fun playing CoD, it's your own fault for playing CoD.
 
Last edited:
Back