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

LOL

[thegarbz]

Another worthless government organisation.

Re:LOL

[gsnedders]

It's an industry body, not a governmental one. It has its power basically from a perpetual threat that if the industry doesn't regulate itself the government will legislate, and nobody wants that to happen.

Re: LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

No conflict of interest there at all, no sir.

Re:LOL

[thegarbz]

If this is what you call self regulation then it's garbage.

It's like saying VW emissions are perfect. Look that car is off and I'm measuring zero. Or BP's an environmentally friendly company, their logo is green and the poster on the wall shows people hugging trees.

Focusing on the Steam page is a load of utter shit from a company which most definitely grossly mislead people, and frankly a good chunk of the customers probably didn't even look at the Steam page when buying based on the previous stories from the developer's mouths.

If a game with such an unprecedented return rate didn't "mislead" consumers then maybe they should have given the job to someone with eyes and a functioning braincell.

Re:LOL

[another_twilight]

That 'too much government regulation is bad' is true does not mean that government regulation is bad.

If government regulation is applied and ends up doing the "exact opposite" of what was intended, then the only solution is not "ever increasing and Draconian modifications".

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

It's strange. I would think that one of the few places where government unarguably has a role is in mediating the interaction of individuals, especially with respect to trade. Whether or not that's for something you think is important, or just "A FUCKING VIDEO GAME".

A company produced and sold a product that a considerable number of those who purchased it found to be substantially different to what they thought they were buying. Maybe some jumped on the bandwagon. Maybe some fooled themselves. That happens with a lot of games. This was on a different scale.

Industry self-regulation has failed to prevent this and in failing to punish it has increased the chance of it happening again. Fail for self-regulation. I'm not sure how _less_ regulation, as you seem to think more appropriate, is going to help. Bad or excessive government regulation may make things worse, but there are alternatives to 'bad' and 'excessive' despite your implication to the contrary.

Oh, and to tun your argument on it's head - THIS IS [THE] FUCKING VIDEO GAME [INDUSTRY], if it's so meaningless/trivial, why are you involved?

Steam Page

[FFOMelchior]

Just to clarify, this ruling is in regards to their Steam page. Most of the blatant OMS false advertising was done through Sean Murray in interviews and conferences. Unfortunately, this doesn't cover that.

Re:Steam Page

[Namarrgon]

Leaving aside that the vast majority of the so-called "bullshit" in that video is purely subjective (e.g. "real" dinosaurs, "will you get bored") or trivial (e.g. a creature pushes aside trees), it's clear that nearly all the player grief stems from Murray's responses to questions about multiplayer - and the video shows those responses entirely out of all context.

I watched a lot of the original interviews at the time, and while Murray did on some occasions answer with tentative "yes" responses to questions like "can you play with your friends" and "can you grief other players ("kinda") - questions that could be ambiguously interpreted, but I agree he should certainly have answered differently - he also spent considerable time downplaying any suggestion of multiplayer, saying it's not that sort of game, it's not about playing with others, it's not designed for that, and anyway there'd be virtually zero chance of meeting other players anyway. You saw none of that in the video, which was obviously designed to pick over everything he said in hindsight and show it in the worst light.

I get that some people really wanted multiplayer in there, but that was never claimed on any marketing material, and Murray invariably tried to steer away from those questions if it came up in an interview. Personally I never thought for a moment that it was a multiplayer game in any sense, and was surprised by the backlash from people that wanted to think that it did. The reviews were certainly very clear that it was solo only.

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.

Re:Steam Page

[Dutch Gun]

Er, just to clarify, by "mod this up", I meant "mod parent up." I'm not quite shameless enough to actually request mods for my own post.

Re:Steam Page

[thegarbz]

questions that could be ambiguously interpreted

Can you interprate a box with an ESRB rating sticker covering the original ESRB rating which was higher in part due to the online multiplayer component that the studio even announced to the ratings agency and left in place even as the boxes were being printed before launch?

he also spent considerable time downplaying any suggestion of multiplayer

Yeah you do that about a day before your game launches when you realise all you have said was bullshit. Also he didn't downplay it he just said the game is so big you won't see other players, and then in week one two players found their exact locations on a map at the same time.

it's not about playing with others, it's not designed for that

Interesting how that wasn't said from the start.

You saw none of that in the video, which was obviously designed to pick over everything he said in hindsight and show it in the worst light.

You don't need bad light to pick apart what he said. You also don't need to pick on a single video. The entire campaign has been a trail of half truths and outright lies.

it's clear that nearly all the player grief stems from Murray's responses to questions about multiplayer

I'm quoting this one out of order for effect. You clearly have not been paying attention to the release if you think people care about multiplayer. The vast majority of what people care about has been gameplay related:
- Procedural generation with the same underlying script. Yay the aliens look slightly different but do the same thing.
- Upgrade and modification systems that have zero effect on the gameplay.
- A completely omitted factional warfare system which was shown off in every preview.
- Finding someone elses base as shown in the preview.
- Intense air-to-air combat scenarios (which also showed multiplayer) which ended up being dumbed down to a point and click adventure.

And perhaps the biggest of them all: The thing at the centre of our galaxy that will blow our minds. And to be fair to him it did blow our minds. It blew our minds about how we could have been so duped by the hype only to have the developers shit in the faces of the people dedicated enough to endure the incredible grind of trying to reach the centre. It blew our minds when suddenly a realisation was absolutely clear that people paid money to go through 100 hours of unenjoyable rubbish for nothing.

No one gives a shit about multiplayer.

Sigh.

[ledow]

Stop buying shit before you know how good (or bad) it is.

You are perpetuating shitty over-hyped products that flop once people actually get their hands on them.

If you didn't part with your money until it was released, reviewed, tested, a handful of brave souls had tried it out, etc. then companies would have to put out decent products first time rather than rely on pre-release hype to sell enough that they don't have to care that it's a turd they're selling.

It's not even a new thing, this sort of shit was happening long before Duke Nukem Forever and people STILL KEEP BUYING SHIT.

Buy a game after it's been out for a year, and you know whether or not you want it. It'll be cheaper, you'll buy half the amount of games you actually do, they'll be much better quality on average and - best of all - after the first year you won't give a shit about "missing out" because year-old games will still be "new" to you.

Re:Sigh.

[mjwx]

Actually, the new BSG was pretty good

I take it you haven't actually seen the final episode of BSG. I couldn't decide if it was cheesy, lazy writing or just plain crap. The writers had definitely given up after the first half of the season and were just continually pulling Deus Ex Machina out of the backsides (the series tended to skirt that a lot, but it just became too obvious after they found (fake) earth).

Not misleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, right this minute, the Steam page for the game shows content that isn't in the game, and will never be in the game.

How is that not misleading?

Re:Not misleading?

[Namarrgon]

Can you be specific? I just rewatched the two videos on the Steam page, and apart from a number of minor graphical differences, there was nothing in there that I haven't seen in some form while playing the game. Caves, megafauna, alien monoliths, space battles over huge freighters, trading posts, walker robots, space stations - everything's in there.

Well, there were sub-second shots of a large beast pushing trees aside and what looked like a crashed freighter - not seen those, but they were only shown briefly as set decoration, not gameplay-related.

Re: So...

[war4peace]

Wait a second right there. I played both Spore and NMS. Spore had hype, but it also had content. granted, the content didn't rise up to the hype, but I obsessed over that game for hundreds of hours. Back then I didn't afford to buy it but I bought it on GOG once I could.

Also, Spore has a rating of 88% on Steam, 96% over last 30 days.
No Man's Sky has a rating of 30% overall and 26% over last 30 days.

So... nowhere near "same result".

Re: So...

[alvinrod]

Everyone likes to trot out that example, but if you replace it with a guy flashing lots of money in a shady bar and getting held up in the parking lot, people tend not to feel anywhere near as much remorse. I can say with certainly that no one deserves to be robbed or hurt, but we don't live in a perfect world and if you don't take chances to minimize bad things happening to you, you're an idiot. Sure you don't deserve to have bad things happen to you, but they're going to happen with far greater frequency than they do to someone who isn't an idiot.

I'm pretty sure you lock your doors at night and never leave your keys in your car. I'll also bet you'd never tell your a female relation or friend that it would be a really bad idea to walk through Riyahd in a mini skirt. She should be perfectly free to do so, but that's practically a death sentence and we both know it.

Re: So...

[wierd_w]

never played spore, but have played NMS.

NMS is more like a very interactive tech demo than a game.

even with the foundation update, there are many important things missing.

1) the asignments given by npcs are very limited, and revolve around "hey, get me this item/material", and no real "yeah, pirates are coming from this nearby system and shooting the shit out of our freighters, can you go blow them up please?"

2) big missing features: users cannot interract with each other, world deformation is not persistent, etc.

3)inventory management still tedious as hell fo no reason. the game supports near limitless item stacking, but does not implement for specific item types, like curiosities. (i KNOW the game suports it, because i can edit the memory table for said items and change the stack depth to a 4 byte integer value, save, and the change persists. i do this religiously for such items. i somehow doubt i will ever collect 4 billion of any item type, but it sure would be nice if Hello Games stopped fucking with me over curiosities and manufactured items, when the game clearly has no need for such fuckery.)

4) warp travel missing important features for navigation. such as "filter for previously visited planets", "restrict to current hyperdrive limits", "filter by star type", "filter by race control", etc. instead it is just jabbing in the dark, and selecting systems is a chore.

5) planet ecosystems very boring, single biome for whole damn planet, very little variety on a single world.

6) taken together, the game is about as interesting as grinding for gold on wow. less so, because zero player-player interaction.