ASA launches investigation into No Mans Sky

The Advertising Standards Authority has confirmed to Eurogamer that it has launched an investigation into No Man's Sky.

The watchdog launched its investigation after receiving "several complaints" about No Man's Sky advertising, a representative told me.

The ASA has the power to have advertisements it believes are in breach of its code of conduct withdrawn, and prevent them from appearing again. If an advertiser refuses to comply with an ASA ruling, it can impose sanctions, such as asking internet search websites to remove a marketer's paid-for search ads.

The investigation is on-going, and so the ASA declined to comment further, but one of the complainants revealed details of its response in a post on Reddit.

The investigation revolves around No Man's Sky's Steam store page, which includes assets some believe misrepresent the controversial space game.

The ASA has contacted both Hello Games and Valve and asked them to respond to a raft of questions relating to No Man's Sky advertisements.

Complaints centre around screenshots and videos that feature more advanced animal behaviour, large-scale combat and ship-flying behaviour than ended up in the launch version of the game. Complainants also say screenshots misrepresent the graphical quality of the game.

There are also complaints around the Steam store page's reference to a lack of loading screens and factions that contest territory.

While the complaints target Steam, the ASA said any ruling would apply to other advertising for No Man's Sky, such as official YouTube videos and the game's listing on the PlayStation Store.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-28-advertising-standards-launches-investigation-into-no-mans-sky

I wonder if anything will come of it?

People already got reimbursed,not sure what more can come out of it

Still ridiculous, posted that on GS article and I'm posting it here.

Damn. Not sure what to think about it.

dont know what to think about it . Sure the game ended up a big disappointment but are Hello games really deserve this especially after Steam/Sony allowed for refunds no matter how many hours you played the game ?

Problem is they still have screenshots and gameplay trailers that were a misrepresentation of the game on the steam page. Anyone that isn't in the loop would look at those and assume that's what the gameplay is. Hello games should have been more careful and removed it when things started going south.

I guess so but isnt what EA and Ubisoft do as well ? Why the double standards by some people . Dont get me wrong i'm not defending them and i was quite critical about NMS but it would be nice to see something similar for big devs/publishers

Media attention changes everything. had hello games kept the marketing of this game low scale things wouldn't be nearly this bad for them in terms of backlash. What happened with ubisoft and watchdogs is abit similar,but people knew were we gonna a downgraded game before it was released and they didn't actually lie about features in the game.

Fair enough although i still think they dont deserve all the hate they are getting considering alot of the hype came from Sony

But sony weren't the one's on TV talkshows discussing the game. They provided hello games with the means of mass marketing no man's sky,but all the previews,interviews,etc..came from sean murry.

that is why sony were able to avoid any responsibility.

So according to the ASA it's Valve's fault that No Man's Sky was so heavily mis-represented in the Sony funded advertisement campaign, that makes a lot of sense.

Aside from them going after the wrong horse, Sony's has already bolted so what's the point in closing the gate now?

Ouch. They need to be contacting Sony as well, they're just as much to blame

so much hate. I bet over half the people hating on this game have never played it

RIP Hello Games

This is the hill we're gonna fight on? Aliens Colonial Marines still uses completely false screenshots on steam and nobody gives a shit.

No its investigating, it has yet to come to any conclusions.

@darkspineslayer: no Man's Sky shit in more peoples morning cereal bowl it would seem.

I enjoyed the game for a dozen hours... Put it away. Did the same thing with uncharted 4.

@TheEroica: Dude, Uncharted 4 has such a great climax though.

This "investigation" is ridiculous.

Uh-Oh

Yes.

I wanted a refund, but it was against retailer policy. Seemed the only ones offered the opportunity were the digital purchasers. If this opens the door to a class action, I'd consider signing on, but it needs a solid foundation. People have to weigh consequences of losing, just look what happened recently when the Aurora CO theater victims tried suing the theater, lost, counter-sued for legal defenses and I think they owe like $75K each. Maybe we should just sucked it up, wasn't the first time any of us have been burned, won't be the last. Might be better just to try to learn from the experience.

I feel no pity for Hello Games.

Yeah this... it's getting ridiculous. There's no doubt that they (Sean Murray/Hello Games/Sony) over-promised & under-delivered with this game. But the amount of hate that Hello Games, and in particular Sean Murray has got, is ridiculous. We shouldn't be throwing so much hate around at developers... the people who create the things we love. Yeah they screwed up, but you can't hate on the guy/team for trying to create something new. We need more of it in the industry. We don't want developers, either large or small, to see this and be scared out of trying to make new, different experiences.

Hopefully others learn from this but, and don't promote their games in the same way.

And these same people that are up in arms about it will continue to pre-order and buy on launch day every game with a bit of hype. Why can't people learn a lesson from this? One they should have learned from stuff like Halo MCC, Driveclub, Order 1886, Batman Arkham Knight, Street Fighter V.

No man, it's not going to fly.

I was never high on NMS, certainly not enough to early purchase it (I still may when its $5 on a steam sale), but the fact that Sean Murray continued to lie AFTER the release and after it had been proven he was lying is disgraceful and he and Hello Games should be taken to task over it. As an industry the amount of bullshots and misrepresentation games get is crazy. Who knows maybe this will help edge those pushing, and lets face it an extremely expensive hobby, to be more honest. Sean Murray and Hello Games would likely have been fine if they had just told the truth, NMS isn't a bad game it just isn't what was promised. In some ways I feel bad for them because they were kinda forced to push a $30ish indie game as a $60 AAA one, and that's where it became a disaster.

eh I don't buy it.... heh

people had been speculating that this game would be boring for almost the past year. All of a sudden it comes out and is boring and everyone is surprised.

Maybe now other studio's will think twice about over promising and under delivering.... Star Citizen will be next at this rate..

at what rate?

They should also investigate Sony for letting them overhype the game during their conferences. Sony knew Murray didn't have a PR team but they still let him show and talk about NMS false advertising during E3 and such.

well said

Bye Games