No Man's Sky Under Investigation Over Claims of Misleading Advertising

[The Enquirer]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

 

[Saelune]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

The amount of medicine level products unregulated by the FDA is appalling. Diet pills and vitamins claiming miraculous weight loss should be under the same scrutiny as medication for depression, MS, and any other medical issue.

But I also think products like Axe body spray should be prevented from advertising as they do. As well as car commercials that show their car driving up buildings to avoid traffic.

 

[Vinsin]

Hm....no.

The existance of worse problems doesn't change the fact that Hello Games pulled the wool over the eyes of its consumers.

+1

I hadn't asked Steam for a refund in over 10 years (.. and I've made some pretty bad calls on games =P) but this one, whole different playing field. I hope Sean doesn't see a cent of profit, sony takes a heavy hammered hit -- and anyone in advertising on that team gets struck for it: the rest of the Dev team can walk away unphased for all I care but Sean, Sony and anyone involved in advertising; I have no sympathy for, if they go into debt, great, if they just lose all profit, fine. Reap the rewards of being liars.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Star Citizen developers must be bricking it if this goes anywhere. Though depends on how loyal the sunk cost fallacy can make people.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

This has got me thinking as I booted it up last night.

Is Elite Dangerous the only space sim that came out of that span of time the only one to live up to over half of it's promises?

Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen (which I forgot was a thing until last night), No Man's Sky...

 

[Gennadios]

Well, I'm all for the games industry being taken to task. I've tried growing my neckbeared and yelling 'til I was hoarse and that didn't do anything.

 

[loa]

Good, hopefully that'll dampen the rampant marketing bullshit but probably not.

 

[The Enquirer]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

The amount of medicine level products unregulated by the FDA is appalling. Diet pills and vitamins claiming miraculous weight loss should be under the same scrutiny as medication for depression, MS, and any other medical issue.

But I also think products like Axe body spray should be prevented from advertising as they do. As well as car commercials that show their car driving up buildings to avoid traffic.

Agreed. They need tighter regulations. All I was saying was that's how they skirt the line and manage to remain legal under current regulations.

 

[Saelune]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

The amount of medicine level products unregulated by the FDA is appalling. Diet pills and vitamins claiming miraculous weight loss should be under the same scrutiny as medication for depression, MS, and any other medical issue.

But I also think products like Axe body spray should be prevented from advertising as they do. As well as car commercials that show their car driving up buildings to avoid traffic.

Agreed. They need tighter regulations. All I was saying was that's how they skirt the line and manage to remain legal under current regulations.

ANYTHING you put in your body should be automatically heavily regulated, as should anything that kills people when it doesnt work or is misused (cars).

 

[fix-the-spade]

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

They're going to get their arse kicked.

Not only did they make a whole bunch of entirely false claims pre-release (Multiplayer, endings, AI, Graphics, physics), even several months post release they are still using some of those claims in their adverts and that pre-rendered E3 trailer is still the main trailer they use in promotional materials, even though it's nothing like what you can buy but presents itself as gameplay.

The real question is what happens after the ASA confirms their misleading promotional campaign. I doubt any fine or admonishment the ASA hands out will be of any consequence, but it leaves consumers open to demand refunds en masse whether they've played the game to death or not. That could cost Sony and Hello Games a large amount of money indeed.

 

[LTenhet]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

The amount of medicine level products unregulated by the FDA is appalling. Diet pills and vitamins claiming miraculous weight loss should be under the same scrutiny as medication for depression, MS, and any other medical issue.

But I also think products like Axe body spray should be prevented from advertising as they do. As well as car commercials that show their car driving up buildings to avoid traffic.

Agreed. They need tighter regulations. All I was saying was that's how they skirt the line and manage to remain legal under current regulations.

ANYTHING you put in your body should be automatically heavily regulated, as should anything that kills people when it doesnt work or is misused (cars).

False-advertising is actually pretty regulated, at least in the U.S. I don't know about the U.K. where this is being initiated; the general rule though is that if a REGULAR person under REGULAR circumstances believes something, and it isn't true, then it's false advertising. At least to my recollection. As per one of the examples, a regular person isn't likely to believe a car is driving up a building, but if they showed it as a hover car and proclaimed it as a hover car, but it's not, then that'd be false advertising. The medical examples are spot-on though, the only reason diet pills get away with it is because they put in teeny letters "With regular excercise".

This particular instance reminds me of the false advertising claim against Aliens: Colonial Marines, which was thrown out if I recall.

 

[Saelune]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

The amount of medicine level products unregulated by the FDA is appalling. Diet pills and vitamins claiming miraculous weight loss should be under the same scrutiny as medication for depression, MS, and any other medical issue.

But I also think products like Axe body spray should be prevented from advertising as they do. As well as car commercials that show their car driving up buildings to avoid traffic.

Agreed. They need tighter regulations. All I was saying was that's how they skirt the line and manage to remain legal under current regulations.

ANYTHING you put in your body should be automatically heavily regulated, as should anything that kills people when it doesnt work or is misused (cars).

False-advertising is actually pretty regulated, at least in the U.S. I don't know about the U.K. where this is being initiated; the general rule though is that if a REGULAR person under REGULAR circumstances believes something, and it isn't true, then it's false advertising. At least to my recollection. As per one of the examples, a regular person isn't likely to believe a car is driving up a building, but if they showed it as a hover car and proclaimed it as a hover car, but it's not, then that'd be false advertising. The medical examples are spot-on though, the only reason diet pills get away with it is because they put in teeny letters "With regular excercise".

This particular instance reminds me of the false advertising claim against Aliens: Colonial Marines, which was thrown out if I recall.

Commercials should be more informative (and relevant). Showing a car driving up a building doesnt tell me what the car can actually do.

I like truck commercials cause its usually them pulling/lifting some heavy thing. You might never need to pull a whale out of a hole, but if you get a truck, you likely want to haul something, so knowing you likely wont ever realistically over-exert your truck is relevant and informative.

 

[The Enquirer]

This would have to be pretty blatant to make me feel that the claim is valid. I've played games that didn't have things that I saw in screenshots. I've watched movies that cut scenes that were in previews. I'm like 90% certain I've seen things on the back of boxes that weren't in the finished product.

To claim this as false advertising, you'd have to prove that they made claims that were outright false. And No Man's Sky is found to have misled with its advertising, Fable should have had such claims investigated as well.

Lots of things should have false-advertising claims made against it. Id wager more than half of commercials are BSing you about something.

If it were up to me, false-advertising laws would be rather strict.

It depends what and where. For example, on a commercial for medicine something cannot make legitament medical claims then not perform in the manner described.

The amount of medicine level products unregulated by the FDA is appalling. Diet pills and vitamins claiming miraculous weight loss should be under the same scrutiny as medication for depression, MS, and any other medical issue.

But I also think products like Axe body spray should be prevented from advertising as they do. As well as car commercials that show their car driving up buildings to avoid traffic.

Agreed. They need tighter regulations. All I was saying was that's how they skirt the line and manage to remain legal under current regulations.

ANYTHING you put in your body should be automatically heavily regulated, as should anything that kills people when it doesnt work or is misused (cars).

Like I said, I agree with you, unfortunately that's just how it works currently unfortunately :/

 

[gigastar]

Wasn't Sony responsible for the game's advertising?

Why aren't they getting any of the blame for this? They certainly deserve their fair share.

Most of the coal powering the hype train was provided by various interviews with Murray himself commenting on features NMS could feature without ever explicitly stating which features would or would not make it into the release version.

AFAIK Sony's marketing was mostly limited to the E3 presentations, and im pretty sure they covered thier ass with the usual 'footage not representative of final product' disclaimer.

People are blowing this "issue" waaay out of proportion. It's a stupid video game. You got duped, get over it and be more careful in the future. There are way worse things happening in the world all the time that nobody gives a shit about.

You certainly have a point and more people should be joining the #StopPreorderingVideogames movement, buuut that doesnt excuse Hello Games for hiding as mch as they did about the games actual features.

 

[mad825]

People are blowing this "issue" waaay out of proportion. It's a stupid video game. You got duped, get over it and be more careful in the future. There are way worse things happening in the world all the time that nobody gives a shit about.

Ah, the view of an anarchist? Or a corporatist? The ASA has all the time in the world to give a shit it about this because they get paid for it.

 

[List]

I have zero knowledge of how the brits do things. If they are found guilty by this investigation (which they are), what happens? What are the consequences they are facing here? a slap in the wrist?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Shouldn't be a long investigation. Look at the video on the Steam Store page, play the game for 10 minutes. Done.

Not long after release I said something somewhere about those videos being blatant false advertising, seeing as how they're from beta builds that don't really at all match what the released product turned out to be. I'm not surprised that it's come around to bite them in the ass.

 

[Lightspeaker]

People are blowing this "issue" waaay out of proportion. It's a stupid video game. You got duped, get over it and be more careful in the future. There are way worse things happening in the world all the time that nobody gives a shit about.

Hm....no.

The existance of worse problems doesn't change the fact that Hello Games pulled the wool over the eyes of its consumers.

Indeed, fallacy of relative privation right there. Same as everything that people dismiss as 'first world problems'.

Just because there are "way worse things happening in the world" and its a "stupid video game" doesn't mean that this problem is invalid.

I have zero knowledge of how the brits do things. If they are found guilty by this investigation (which they are), what happens? What are the consequences they are facing here? a slap in the wrist?

Here:
https://www.asa.org.uk/Industry-advertisers/Sanctions/Online.aspx

For the record...do NOT google "biggest ASA punishment" which is what I did to try to see what punishments they've handed out before. I got a load of links to porn sites about BDSM and large behinds, no joke. >_>

 

[Joccaren]

Oh come on, man, this is ridiculous. Yes, they lied, but everyone with half a brain should have been able to see this from miles away. There is a very easy solution to this kind of situation. Never pre-order (what's the point of pre-ordering digital games anyway?!). Just have patience for one week and see the user reviews. It's so simple.

Why is advertising legal then?

If we are to expect advertising to be a lie, that makes its only purpose to prey on those uninformed about the product. This is predatory and unethical, and thus it should be illegal.

The assumption should always be that the advertisement is telling the truth. Then, when its not, we punish it for lying. This means advertisements have an ethical and business purpose in informing the customer about the product, rather than just preying on the uninformed. There is more to this like puffery and such, but at a base level we expect objective statements made about a product to be true. This is necessary for any level of contract to exist and be maintained as legal.

 

[Rangaman]

People are blowing this "issue" waaay out of proportion. It's a stupid video game. You got duped, get over it and be more careful in the future. There are way worse things happening in the world all the time that nobody gives a shit about.

The "starving children in Africa" argument is as dumb here as it is anywhere else. Hello Games (or at least Sean Murray) did lie about features in this game.