No Man’s Sky’s Advertising Cleared of Charges of Deceiving Consumers

<p>We reported a <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;no-mans-skys-advertising-investigated-misrepresentation&sol;">little while ago<&sol;a> that <em>No Man&&num;8217&semi;s Sky <&sol;em>was being investigated for false advertising by the Advertising Standards Authority &lpar;ASA&rpar;&comma; a UK-based regulator for media advertising&period; The case was specifically aimed against the Steam version of the project from Hello Games&comma; and as of today&comma; all 23 complaints filed against the game were found to be not true&period; This means that <em>No Man&&num;8217&semi;s Sky <&sol;em>did not deceive consumers in any substantial way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You can go through the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;asa&period;org&period;uk&sol;Rulings&sol;Adjudications&sol;2016&sol;11&sol;Valve-Corporation&sol;SHP&lowbar;ADJ&lowbar;351045&period;aspx&num;&period;WD8Jo&lowbar;krKCj">entire investigation here<&sol;a>&comma; with statements from Hello Games and the ASA&comma; but the summation is that no charge against the game was upheld&period; If anything&comma; the document helps to cement the ambitious and wildly varied nature of the game&period; You also get a clearer understanding of features that the game has due to Hello Games having to explain why things are the way they are&period; For example&comma; I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t even aware that warp times between systems were shorter if less planets were in the system&period; That makes a lot of sense&comma; but is subtle and not conveyed to the consumer&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It seems like a lot of the complaints waged against Hello Games were because of a lack of understanding on how the behind-the-scenes mechanics operate&period; There are some instances where the ASA cite minor differences between the footage and the gameplay itself&comma; but they shrug them off as inconsequential and one specific example discourages the idea that a consumer could be swayed by a feature&period; The ASA states &&num;8220&semi;<em>Although animals in the trailer were shown moving large trees&comma; which was not observed in the footage or during gameplay&comma; we considered that this was a fleeting and incidental scene&comma; unlikely in itself to influence materially a consumer’s decision to purchase the game<&sol;em>&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This information all comes out a couple days after Hello Games <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;no-mans-sky&period;com&sol;foundation-update&sol;">released a new update<&sol;a> for <em>No Man&&num;8217&semi;s Sky<&sol;em> that includes building bases&comma; buying freighters and new game modes&period; This will be the first of several free updates that make their way to the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I for one&comma; am happy that Sean Murray might feel a little bit more comfortable coming out and discussing the game in greater detail&period; Especially with a third-party having combed through their entire game and given them a thumbs up&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Source&colon; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;asa&period;org&period;uk&sol;Rulings&sol;Adjudications&sol;2016&sol;11&sol;Valve-Corporation&sol;SHP&lowbar;ADJ&lowbar;351045&period;aspx&num;&period;WD8Jo&lowbar;krKCj">Advertising Standards Authority<&sol;a><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;