No Man's Sky's Steam Page Didn't Mislead Gamers, Rules UK Ad Watchdog (arstechnica.com)

Shortly after it officially launched in August on PlayStation and Windows, No Man's Sky -- the game that sees the protagonist explore space and experience uncertain places -- was accused of false advertising. Players felt that the pictures and videos used to promote the game on its Steam page didn't represent the sort of things players might expect to encounter in the game. Today, a UK advertising regulator has ruled the opposite -- the game didn't mislead gamers. Ars Technica reports: The complainants -- who had been part of a semi-organized campaign upset with the state of the game at release -- insisted that the screenshots on the storefront had seemed to promise various features that turned out to be absent from the final game. These included things like the appearance and behavior of animals, large in-game buildings, large-scale space combat, loading screens, a promised system wherein the different factions contested galactic territory, and general graphical polish. Hello Games' defense rested on the fact that No Man's Sky is procedurally generated, and that while players would not enjoy the exact experience shown in promotional images, they could reasonably expect to see similar things. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) agreed, saying: "The summary description of the game made clear that it was procedurally generated, that the game universe was essentially infinite, and that the core premise was exploration. As such, we considered consumers would understand the images and videos to be representative of the type of content they would encounter during gameplay, but would not generally expect to see those specific creatures, landscapes, battles, and structures." It also ruled that the developers hadn't misled customers over graphics: "We understood the graphical output of the game would be affected by the specifications of each player's computer, and considered that consumers would generally be aware of this limitation."

Comments

Re:LOL

[Archangel Michael]

And let me guess, your answer is overly intrusive government regulations that end up doing the exact opposite of whatever it was that was intended, requiring ever increasing and Draconian modifications to existing regulations whenever someone finds a effective work around. All run by unelected bureaucrats who can't be fired short of Rape or being a KKK member.

On the other hand, THIS IS A FUCKING VIDEO GAME why the FUCK do we need government involved?

Re:Steam Page

[Dutch Gun]

Someone please mod this +1 Informative, because this a key point. When people talk about "misleading advertisement", I also believe they are generally talking about expectations set by Sean Murray, who seems unable to constrain himself to describing features he knows will ship, and instead seems to describe the game as he'd imagine he would like it to become.

I'm a professional game developer, so naturally I've seen the "behind the scenes" view for a number of AAA title releases, especially the discrepancy between the released information and the true state of the game at the time. Most people would be shocked at how fluid the design of a game can be, how many iterations it takes to get things right, how many crazy ideas get tried and thrown away, and sometimes, how late in development things can really come together, especially if you're developing a lot of new technology. You have to be *extremely* disciplined when talking about your game, especially if you've got a hard deadline, because it's almost inevitable that many cool ideas and features are going to get cut simply because there's no time to polish them properly.

Unfortunately, some people like Peter Molyneux have demonstrated that they don't have the proper temperament for talking to the press or the public, because they can't stay on script, or can't simply tell the honest truth about a feature that's still very much up in the air. I suspect Murray is like this as well, and unfortunately, he damaged the reputation of the company because of his lack of media discipline.