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

[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.

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.

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.