No Man’s Sky was undoubtedly the most anticipated, widely-salivated-online game in recent memory. The open-world, space adventure survival game developed by Hello Games shined at E3, but after massive delays, when it was finally released in 2016, it didn’t live up to the hype. No Man’s Sky failed to deliver the same graphical capabilities shown in earlier demos. Fans were pissed, using their massive disappointment to lodge complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, claiming the game’s Steam site falsley advertised the game.
A couple months later, the ASA announced in a statement No Man’s Sky didn’t breach any advertising standards.
“We understood that the screenshots and videos in the ad had been created using game footage, and acknowledged that in doing this the advertisers would aim to show the product in the best light. Taking into account the above points, we considered that the overall impression of the ad was consistent with gameplay and the footage provided, both in terms of that captured by Hello Games and by third parties, and that it did not exaggerate the expected player experience of the game. We therefore concluded that the ad did not breach the Code.”
“We investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.11 (Exaggeration), but did not find it in breach.”
Honestly, with No Man’s Sky’s post-launch failure, I’m happy to see them get a win on the claims. Gamers can be pissed off No Man’s Sky wasn’t very good, but using that anger to make false claims is just as bad as what they perceived Hello Games to do to them. With a new, huge update, who knows, maybe No Man’s Sky can be salvaged. Regardless, its advertising standards were fair. Time for disappointed gamers to move on.
[GameZone]
