Advertising Standards Rules Hello Games Did Not Mislead Consumers with No Man's Sky

[MrFalconfly]

"We understood that the screenshots and videos in the ad had been created using game footage

Either I'm thinking of a different ad, or they have a strange definition of "game footage"

Well if it's the second video on Steam, which is basically just ingame footage of someone taking off from a big ship, flying down to a planet, taking off again, warping to a different planet, landing on it, and look around a bit, then yeah.

Hell, the first video (the actual add I suspect) isn't even that misleading. It just shows you walking out of a cave, getting into your ship, you taking off, flying off into space, getting into a minor space-battle, and flying down to a different planet.

Where Hello Games were misleading, was in their hype buildup. Their adds don't actually showcase anything that isn't in the game. Sure, Sean Murray lied his pants off in interviews, but I suspect that isn't within the purview of the ASA.

EDIT:

I mean, none of the ads for NMS I've seen have actually said "multiplayer" or "ship costumisation", or "ship renaming". They just show you flying around (which confused me, because to my eyes they advertised a 15 Euro game, not a 60 Euro game)

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Only suckers lost.

The world is just.

 

[hermes]

So its official.. you can blatantly use bullshots and doctored footage is a-okay and perfectly legal because HEY! The experience is clearly the same...

Which is a tactic they used for decades now. Bullshots are such a common practice that there are companies dedicated to "doctore footage" for marketing proposes since the SNES era.

Not that it is any justification, but NMS didn't trend in some malicious new grounds here, which is why the ASA ruled out they are no different than your regular FF 15, Bioshock Infinite, Killzone 2 or Colonial Marines.

 

[Raioken18]

I get that they are only able to assess the ads on the Steam page. But that ruling is crazy, it basically says that they think because it's procedurally generated that it's impossible to prove that certain advertised elements wouldn't ever exist. It's not magic, half of the video they took down was just outright stuff that is impossible even with procedural generation.

They could at least fix transitions between planets for enemy ships, or the respawn of destroyed space ships so you could dogfight without having to glitch. Stuff still shown in the trailers that are still up... that just don't work. Like I know why they gave this stuff a pass, but it's been months, they could at least fix it.

 

[Lufia Erim]

B.F.S. - but no real surprise. They would have to understand the medium of games and the mechanics of what was being promised, and will never be in the game. Ever.

Yeah! Damn adults! They don't know anything about our medium! They'll never understand videogames! Only gamers should judge gamers!

/SoMuchSarcasm

Hey you know what? I got an idea, how about we wait for review and Lets plays before buying a game! I don't even blame hello games, i blame the consumers. You guys brought this on yourselves. Like with DLC and Micro transactions.

 

[maninahat]

What interests me is that people cared so much about No Man's Sky that they felt the need to raise the case in the first place. I mean, have you even seen the promotional material for Bioshock: Infinite? Gameplay walkthroughs, dev videos and trailers show you scenes, characters, story elements and game mechanics that are completely gone from the released game. I'd say that was a far more flagrant bit of inaccurate advertising, and though people noticed, no one seemed to pass judgement about it.

 

[Pseudonym]

software advertizing laws are fairly lax on purpose, they have to be, since software changes at such a drastic and rapid rate. If we analyzed all Adds for "not in the game" content i would wager that basicly anything that came out 6 or more months prior to release would be guilty.

I'm not sure whether that would be such a bad thing. So what if a company has to wait with advertising their game untill it is at least somewhat done? I don't see why people should have the right to promise me things that they can't deliver. Right now the rules are so lax that half of the ads I see about anything are blatandly dishonest in one way or another.

 

[Samechiel]

It doesn't really matter what the ruling was. Hello Games has already squandered the good faith of their player base. If they make another game, nobody will buy it.