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No Man's Sky Under Investigation For False Advertising (polygon.com)
No Man's Sky is one of the most talked about games this year. The game sees the protagonist explore the space and experience uncertain places. But its controversial promotional material may also have played an instrumental role in making the title a sleeper-hit success. Polygon reports: No Man's Sky's promotional material has come under fire since launch, and it's now the subject of an ongoing investigation. The U.K.-based Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) confirmed to Polygon that it's received "several complaints about No Man's Sky's advertising," which angry customers have criticized as misleading. "I can confirm we have received several complaints about No Man's Sky advertising and we have launched an investigation," the ASA told Polygon. A representative for the ASA declined to comment on the particulars of the investigation, but a thread on the No Man Sky's subreddit details some of the most prominent issues Steam users have with the game's store page, which they passed on to the organization. Screens and video on Steam suggest a different type of combat, unique buildings, "ship flying behaviour" and creature sizes than what's found in the actual game itself. The store page overall has also been criticized for showing No Man's Sky with higher quality graphics than can be attained in-game.
the producer just need to take down the screenshot/video on steam and replace it with a current one and they are fine.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Long overdue to start making these game companies follow the same truth in advertising laws other companies have to obey...
...revolves around the protagonist exploring the space and experience uncertain places and sheer beauty of all.
What the ...?
1) Put down bong when posting a summary.
2) Grammer?!?
3) Profit!
No man's sky was advertised on deep adventure with a lot of new things to discover. I bought the game before launch. The result? Grinding, again and again. While it was fun at first to learn a new word, seeing that even learning 150 words don't seems to affect very much the gameplay, only some gift that aliens can give to you when you're answering correctly their questions, it's kind of booring.
The ship manoeuvrability is close to none, the big ships you're seeing is not avalaible to buy..... No really what's I've paid for.
>> has also been criticized for showing No Man's Sky with higher quality graphics than can be attained in-game.
It definately looks like on the PC version at least, they're rendering it at a much lower resolution than the screen resolution then upscaling it.
My guess is that because its a small team, the PC version has been intentionally shot in the foot so that they can use the same code for both it and the console version, rather than have to do any more work.
Game marketing!! Brand new! Never before seen! Coupled with fan boi hate, bad combination.
Definition: Bullshit to FORCE YOU to buy something you don't need or want
Sean Murray, is that you?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
The whole concept looked like total BS to me the first time I heard about it. I was quite surprised by people's expectations. It doesn't matter how much diversity you put into this, or how hi-res graphics are, the gameplay idea itself just doesn't cut it.
Hello Games: But your honor, No Man's Sky was designed to be an interpretation of the vast infinite possibilities space has to offer young intrepid minds. We merely provided the tools to explore a sandbox world and made no promises in detail of exactly what content they come across because our vision was all about exploration and discovery."
It seems like a pretty legit complaint to me. Unsure why you're so mad...
DO YOU GET IT? BECAUSE HYPE IS LYFE.
This is par for the course in gaming, as sales needs to make its numbers on the $60 price point within the first two weeks.
Yeah, not really. Just people whining about nothing.
Don't bother with CronoCloud (I would say just about gaming, but that's all I ever see them post about.)
Alternatively, start a blood war with CronoCloud by saying you enjoy mouse and keyboard for gaming.
The artwork on Atari 2600 cartridges boxes was never presented as the way the actual game looked and it certainly wasn't a gameplay video that showed things that aren't in the game.
Companies care about money. I think the real blame falls on all the people who pre-paid for this game.
What is this "truth in advertising" you refer to? The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising. I have yet to see an ad for a game that is not "enhanced" in some way. The same is true for most consumer products; they're photo-shopped more than supermodels
I think people are missing the basic concept of "fraud" and how it invalidates a contractual relationship. Probably a lesson worth learning before you keep getting unlubed penetration from companies for the rest of your life.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I have yet to see an ad for a game that is not "enhanced" in some way. The same is true for most consumer products; they're photo-shopped more than supermodels
There are different degrees of "enhancement," some of which are legal, and some aren't. It's one thing for Burger King to hand-craft unrealistically delicious looking hamburgers in their commercial, even though you know the product you get isn't going to look quite that good. It would be another thing entirely if Burger King advertised a new Triple Bacon Jalapeno Burger, you go buy one, it doesn't have any bacon or any jalapenos on it, and the manager tells you the store never had any bacon or jalapeno in stock in the first place.
The advertisements for No Man's Sky went above and beyond mere "enhancement" or Photoshopping. They apparently show game play features that simply don't exist, and never did exist. That's illegal.
Works great.
That was a total crapfest who's trailer lead many to preorder it only to find out how terrible it was later.
That was ART work, not a supposedly real screen shot of the actual graphics.
I thought there were bigger issues than just souped-up screenshots/videos. I mean, I know that people bought this thinking that it is a vast, procedurally-generated "universe" that was persistent/simultaneous for all users so you could conceivably "meet" someone (and it was indicated that it was the only way you could "see" how you "look" in the game).
Which would have been an amazing feat of engineering, but it turned out they were lying and simply relying on the "vastness" that gave a low probability for two users to be close enough to discover it is impossible to meet (which is, of course, exactly what happened a week or so after it was released). Vast procedural universes that were not persistent/simultaneous for all users are a few magnitudes less impressive and have been done since the 80's (in fact they could fit in a floppy disk - see Elite/Elite II) and it is not how this was described.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
But that was artwork, not presumed screenshots. You cannot judge a book by its cover.
However, publishers then put screenshots from the arcade machine on the Spectrum box, which is a matter much more similar to the one at hand.
Look at how Atari games were sold... Think that image on the cartridge has any meaning? Remember Nintendo Power magazine? Remember like every back of box to every video game ever sold? More recently, remember youtube videos of every cut scene ever?
It's been so prevalent for so long, its now common practice for companies to embed "Actual Game Footage" in videos now because we've been lied to for so long.
Anyway from all accounts it was all very sleazy, sketchy, and douchy what they did. However... The ending not what you thought it was supposed to be? Remember Mass Effect 3?
I doubt this will do anything, even in the UK where the lawsuit was filed. The company is probably already toast, in reputation if not financially... yet.
The only game I ever pre-ordered was Masters of Orion 3... All this type of thing does is delay sales for the industry. I looked at buying No Man's Sky... But thought to myself, I think I'll wait until the reviews come out. Glad I did. Just more gamers reluctant to jump on new games right away.
Just waiting for Star Citizen to actually release as advertised...
It's a really good game, lots of fun, you can probably spend hundreds of hours exploring the unique universe created.
Not everythign can be mine craft you guys
I evaluated an unlicensed copy of the game and I still felt ripped off...
They were hand drawn artistic pictures. You bought your game basically by choosing the best looking, then had 16 colors and a sub-VGA screen full of giant pixels.
In the last three lines or so, we finally find out what they did that was objectionable.
The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising.
Spoken like a crook. And there are a lot of crooks and snake oil salesman out there, and this is clearly within that particular genre. But the purpose of advertising is to connect people with a product they might need or want, and to convince them that they need or want it. At the end of the day, if I want to sell you product X, all I can do is talk about its advantages, and how it might help you personally, and I can do all of that without ever telling you a lie. You must decide if you need it / want it or can or can't afford it.
On the other hand, if I do lie to you, and tell you product X will do something it won't, then I have committed a form of fraud, and you have a reasonable civil tort against me. But a reasonable degree of photo manipulation may be expected due to the nature of the medium. Breakfast cereal, for example, is filmed with glue instead of milk because milk goes bad REALLY fast under the heat of a studio light. An image may be photo-shopped to restore definition or color lost in the process of photography. That doesn't mis-represent the product so much as it helps present the best-face of the product. I might reasonably want to show my video game sprites rendered by the best commercial hardware available, but if I render that at colors and resolutions impossible to achieve with currently available hardware, than I have committed fraud. And it seems the NMS developers have done that. /P.
I've got about 140 hours in on PC, and I may be at the crest of what I can do. I've got my suit and tool and ship maxed out for inventory, with suit and ship maxed out with upgrades. Some 20,000,000 units in the bank. Learned 2 of the 3 alien languages (halfway through the last one, by now). I'm pretty much down to achievements at this point, and jumping from system to system. Visually, it's got a lot of appeal. It's pretty soothing to play -- a bit like "Endless Ocean". I didn't really expect to get great spaceflight mechanics or anything like that. I pretty much grind out on burglarizing Operations Centers and Manufacturing Facilities, looking for new tech blueprints to make a handful of technologies and materials I don't already have ... and learn that last language. It's beginning to get a little dull.
So what's it missing?
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Oh, so now its wrong to cheat people who have already submitted to other forms of abuse through Digital Rights Manglement?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Step out of the time machine. Back then you could not expect the game to look anything like the advertisment on the box. Why? Because anyone who had at least a minimum of knowledge of the matter KNEW that this is impossible with the technology back then. If an Atari 2600 game promised you "exciting racing action" you did NOT expect a first person view in 1900x1200 resolution and Dolby 7.1 sound. You had certain expectations, within the limitations of the capabilities of the console back then, and usually (!) they were fulfilled. Yes, there was a LOT of crappy Atari games, which also contributed to the eventual crash in 83, but that's not the point now. There's a lot of crap today as well, but, guess what, that crap is usually not full of unfulfilled promises.
When you have today someone promising you different ships behaving differently, different multiplayer modes, a procedurally generated universe with multiple NPC factions waging war around you (and without your participation), and that you can take sides and that the NPC factions will react accordingly, then you can actually believe that. Because it is not only possible, it has been done before.
This is not a completely outlandish expectation like it would be for an Atari 2600 game.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We can expect the burger to be slightly better looking on camera than when the 18 year old in the back slaps it together. That's been... accepted. We understand that slight embellishment for the "ideal form" is a thing and it's been more or less decided that that much is okay.
On the other hand you'll note that when your big mac has only a single meat patty in the whole thing, you can take it back to the counter and get that shit fixed. Because it's not the burger they promised. And THAT don't fly.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/metroid/images/6/64/Metroidone.jpg
Sometimes it was pretty honest!
Jesus Christ. My Atari 2600 Superman game had a cartoon of Superman on the front of the box, but only a pixillated blob in the actual game. You didn't hear about people demanding a refund because of that. Of course the advertising lies. What kind of surprise is that for anyone?
That the game wouldn't look as good as the cartoon should have been obvious to every Atari 2600 owner. However, what did happen in the 80's is that a game with ports to multiple computer systems would have screenshots on the back of the best looking port, not of the port that was actually in the box. That was misleading, in my opinion.
... That you still believe in the hype! Ha ha
No. And it's not me, either.
I'm laughing so hard I think I'm going to have to change my pants.
False advertising is when a product says it has features it doesn't.
FRAUD would be more likely the term applicable for a Kickstarter that didn't provide what it promised.
In fact, one could almost suggest it's a RICO action.
-Styopa
So advertising isn't advertising?
If a product is not as advertised then Aussies can request (and get) refunds. Steam recently lost a high court case on this. All Aussies can still get refunds on NMS.
Advertisers should never be allowed to misrepresent a product.
How about the fact that pre-release they said you can play with your friends but after release we find out its not possible, not just because of the size of the galaxy but because the mechanics of the game doesn't support multi-player. The developer stated outright before release that we would be able to play with friends but after release says the opposite.
Players have actually found the same planet the other guy was on since release and even though they were there at the same time in game time was different for each user. Plus that fact that things you find and name doesn't get uploaded to the no mans sky server until you tell the game to upload means everyone is playing on there own instance of the game.
I treat it as a sort of zen-like palate cleanser between other games. Kind of like how I use Minecraft.
In NMS I sometimes give myself a little goal say (try to find a tool upgrade) then I go around and do that. Or I use a beacon to find more points to visit then spend some time clearing points, or spend time trying to find crashed ships or mine some Emeril.
NMS has the same kind of "physicality" to me that Minecraft does. It feels like I could "touch it" and that it feels "solid". They feel more like "places" and less like games. Lego games have the same sort of feeling, like I'm controlling an actual physical lego-whatever in some kind of super huge lego diorama.
What bothers me the most about the game is the UI, and the lack of "save anywhere"
To me the game would be somwhere around a 6.5 to maybe 7.5 or so on a 10 point scale. I don't recommend buying it without spending some time watching some streaming of it, or watching a friend play it, or playing a friend's copy, the game isn't for everyone. I also think that HG shouldn't be charging $59 for it. IMHO it should be in the Indie-game at the $20-$25 price point category.
(I would say just about gaming, but that's all I ever see them post about.)
I do sometimes comment about other things, I pop up in Fedora and Linux threads now and again.
start a blood war with CronoCloud by saying you enjoy mouse and keyboard for gaming.
You must not have been paying attention, I like mice, they're fine, but they're not the be-all and end-all of input devices. Given my druthers in some games I prefer hybrid control systems, analog stick for movement, mouse for aiming.
It looks like this: https://forum.warthunder.com/i...
But I personally don't use that method with War Thunder.
But it is keyboard movement I truly loathe, keyboards were designed for text input, not game control. Oh sure, devs put keyboard controls for action games into games because of gamers too cheap to get a frickin joystick for their C64's/DOS machines....but it wasn't optimal then and it isn't optimal now.
Saw the YouTube vids on this game and decided to stear clear . No multiplayer ? And that UI looked like it was designed by k mart pastel dept ...
What is this "truth in advertising" you refer to? The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising.
Maybe in the stupid world you live in. Most of the sales information I receive is in the form of Enterprise Solutions, and it has to be accurate or that company gets sued. Just because your experience is from the gutter, don't assume that is the same for all of us.
The bitter truth is 90% of games are unplayable, crappy or not in personal taste. Ever since I started spending money on games I regret it 90% of the time. For a gamer these may be necessary expenses, but far above any one title.
I've been calling One Man's Lie GAY MAN'S LIE from DAY 1.
ITS A FUCKING FRAUD. THERE ARE TONS OF ASSHOLE FANBOIS ON REDDIT LICKING SEAN MURRAY'S FAGGOT BALLS.
They have the fucking nerve to compare this guy to Peter Molyneux.
TSARKON
well yes if you bought it boxed.
steam has a 2 hour refund limit by default.
and even sony has been giving refunds for it.. which is uncommon
anyways, with steam the problem was false trailers and rabid fanbois combo. the fanbois just said that you had not found the stuff yet.
nms was opposite of a sleeper hit. it was a first week cash grab based on pre launch marketing lies(yes the stuff ceo says publicly IS MARKETING! yes the stage shows constitute legally as marketing!).
and the another problem was the sean murray cultists who parroted the lies even post launch.
also if you still doubt that the guy is full of shit with pockets full of money from the launch.. just look at his twitter now. he ia sooo full of shit. sad thing is theres games that do the promised stuff thats realistic to achieve(persistent editing of millions of planets is not one of those things).
never ever give him a fucking cent more.
and for some reason the fanbois also ignore, like sean, all the other games that did the promised stuff better that were released in past 30(!) years! they did nothing groundbreaking and the engine lacks the stuff that ignited the hype in the first place.
How about the community with all its great moders, designers, texturers, etc. work on its own game? Call it FreeSky or OpenSpace (maybe not), and implement every feature you wanted in the game from the start, instead of trying to force those down a game that's not designed for it.
can't afford doesn't come into play when you sell a car without seats and registration.
you can't just say a laptop has the newest nvidia gpu when it doesn't have it.
you can't just say that your ice cream is made from cream when you make it out of piss only.
truth in advertising is that you don't lie about what the product has or what it can do. these are objective things, not subjective.
There seems to be a surprising amount of people who think that false advertising is an ok thing to do, defend it, and even blame customers for believing it. I do not want to live in that world.
Wow, you sure have some rather specific taste. Maybe you should stop buying puzzle games when you're only into racing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I tried to convince myself that it was a "relaxing", "meditative" experience, a "palate cleanser" if you will.
After a while, I just couldn't convince myself of even that minimal goal. It's just... nothing. The terrible gameplay actively discourages you from doing the only thing that the game really offers (exploration), and the exploration is only skin deep due to the shallowness of their generation algorithm.
And really, how can you say NMS feels "solid", when you can walk right through the animals and things don't fall when you mine out the ground from underneath them? What's the opposite of "solid" in this context?
Everybody point at the libertarian and laugh.
You can tell who the marketing weasels are out there when they defend these practices...
Yeah, most games are playable, even if they suck. AC sounds like he has no idea what he actually wants in a game, or has ridiculous expectations of them.
What is this "truth in advertising" you refer to? The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising. I have yet to see an ad for a game that is not "enhanced" in some way. The same is true for most consumer products; they're photo-shopped more than supermodels
There is a range of behaviour between total honesty and downright lying. In a civilised society, we try to balance things with laws so that companies can still use marketing and advertising to help sell stuff without being allowed to defraud their customers entirely.
Now, the free market libertarian answer is to have no such laws and let everybody fight it out through the courts. Which, er, require a legal system to work. Extreme libertarians would presumably just have literal fighting, so the person with the biggest fists/guns wins.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Do understand that not lying is not the same as telling the truth. I can not give you essential information and that would lead you to buy a product that does not do what you expect it to do.
I could sell you software on a CD, but not tell you you need to buy a separate key to unlock it for 500 more. I did not lie.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
i'm pretty sure i could sue you for a refund if you sold me a cd and then kept the keys for 500 more.
and the judge would probably rule in my favor, and order you to pay for my court fees.
here's the car you bought. but if you want the keys give me an extra grand.
fuck you.
During the opening intro, if you pay attention to the system names, you will see the same systems show up multiple times as the galaxy passes you by.
That was flag 1 for me as to the proceduralness of the galaxy.
#2 was the equipment slotting, and how new guns always gave an extra slot or two (except pistols which are n-1 slots), and how crashed ships varied from -1 slot to +1 slot when discovered.
#3 was how every station and planetary base seemed to follow a boring template. More than one for certain places, but obviously not procedurally generated (see dwarf fortress and company for actual procedurally generated buildings, and how rarely they appear sane from a human architectural point of view.)
I lost interest after that and moved on to other things.
And wished you could fly the aluminum mallard around to weird planets and see weird things...
Then NMS might be worth it to you (at a 10-20 dollar pricepoint.)
If you wanted it as a procedurally generated universe of infinite exploration with interesting stuff to do, pass it by. It has some coolness to it, but honestly you'd be better off playing minecraft or minetest if you want infinite procedurally generated worlds to skip around through.
Hell if somebody felt like getting off their ass and writing the C++ and LUA scripting support, it is entirely possible that minetest could have spaceships to fly around in (already has boats and cars and minecars), but would need work for the flying all directions, acceptable landing area, and planet/space additions (if one planet wasn't enough.) The multiplayer is already backed in, as is mod downloading. Plus it can run on all sorts of hardware much older than NMS can, albeit with insufficient frame rates if it is too old. The one feature NMS got right, which sadly minetest falls short on: Block generation/surface generation in NMS is much smoother than minetest (which tends to thunk in new blocks a few at a time, making it easy to see ungenerated areas before you reach them. Can be annoying for people wanting a truly seamless exploration experience.
Look at how Atari games were sold...
This was apparently one of the reasons for the design of the early NES titles' box art, mainly the so called "black box" series. They showed the actual sprites and blocks (with some occasional motion blur and pixel tilting), because Nintendo didn't want consumers do be disappointed by the actual graphics not matching fancy box art.
http://timewarpgamer.com/features/box_art_nes_black_boxes.html