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No Man's Sky Under Investigation For False Advertising (polygon.com) 261

No Man's Sky is one of the most talked about games this year. The game sees the protagonist explore the space and experience uncertain places. But its controversial promotional material may also have played an instrumental role in making the title a sleeper-hit success. Polygon reports: No Man's Sky's promotional material has come under fire since launch, and it's now the subject of an ongoing investigation. The U.K.-based Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) confirmed to Polygon that it's received "several complaints about No Man's Sky's advertising," which angry customers have criticized as misleading. "I can confirm we have received several complaints about No Man's Sky advertising and we have launched an investigation," the ASA told Polygon. A representative for the ASA declined to comment on the particulars of the investigation, but a thread on the No Man Sky's subreddit details some of the most prominent issues Steam users have with the game's store page, which they passed on to the organization. Screens and video on Steam suggest a different type of combat, unique buildings, "ship flying behaviour" and creature sizes than what's found in the actual game itself. The store page overall has also been criticized for showing No Man's Sky with higher quality graphics than can be attained in-game.
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No Man's Sky Under Investigation For False Advertising

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  • by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @01:51PM (#52978455)
    the producer just need to take down the screenshot/video on steam and replace it with a current one and they are fine.
    • by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @01:52PM (#52978465) Journal

      Should force Steam to issue refunds for anybody that wants one who bought before that point though.

      • by subanark ( 937286 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:07PM (#52978595)

        Anyone? Even people who put 100+ hours into the game? It shouldn't take that long to determine that the game doesn't live up to expectations.

        • by wardrich86 ( 4092007 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:20PM (#52978723)
          "Maybe if I just put in another 100 or so hours I'll be able to find those sweet areas that they used to make the promo material with!" -No person ever
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by subanark ( 937286 )

            "Maybe if I bitch and moan about something I really don't care about, I can get free money" - A lot of people

            I think getting $1/hr of entertainment is a good deal for anyone wanting to get the latest game hot off the presses. Better $/hr than a movie is.

            • by darkain ( 749283 )

              You insensitive clod! I go to the $2 theater on half-price tuesdays! You can't beat a buck a movie on the big screen!

            • Sorry, my original comment sounded snarky in the wrong direction. I actually absolutely agree with you, and despite the negative press I still plan to eventually grab the game.
            • You're assuming it was "entertainment"...

          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            That 100 hour thing, is utterly arbitrary, it really depends on what was being sold. So if the advertising is, buy No Mans Sky and play for 100 hours before getting utterly bored and stop playing the game but if they are marketing infinite interesting game play and do not provide it, than 100 or 200 hours, yep, money back. People playing the game bored shitless for hour on hour hoping to eventually find the interesting part, only to get really pissed off with nothing but empty repetition have good reason t

            • by Anonymous Coward

              You don't get your money back when a movie doesn't live up to the trailer hype (Star Wars Ep1??)

              Sorry. That's the way life is. Stop believing the hype, and stop pre-ordering like a fucking moron.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

          Anyone? Even people who put 100+ hours into the game? It shouldn't take that long to determine that the game doesn't live up to expectations.

          Oh my dear god, not this all over again? We discussed this here already, and it's been discussed why that's wrong. Please go back to the prior discussion and read about it.

          • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @04:53PM (#52979887)

            Oh my dear god, not this all over again? We discussed this here already, and it's been discussed why that's wrong. Please go back to the prior discussion and read about it.

            Really? You're not going to bother explaining that?

            Well, in any case, for people who don't want to go hunting for earlier, unmentioned discussions, here's the gist of it:

            It's not abnormal for games to put content behind gates. You don't get all the weapons on the first level of Doom, you have to go through earlier levels to get to later levels, you unlock powers as you play through, that general idea. No Man's Sky initially appears to be following this pattern: your first planet has plenty of resources for the survival aspect, but you need to leave and go out into space and visit other planets to unlock new tech and get new ships. There are two content paths (follow the path of Atlas or reach the center of the galaxy) that you can take to do this. Each path supposedly takes 40-60 hours of gameplay to complete.

            Problem: What I just said about needing to leave and go out into space? Turns out, you don't. You can grind up just about everything on your first planet. (There's an exception - alien languages - but it's completely meaningless. Each planet is tied to one of three alien races, so you'd need to grind on one of each to max literally everything.)

            Now you'd assume - and a lot of initial looks did - that the first planet intentionally had bountiful resources to ensure you didn't get screwed when you start the game. The logical assumption is that as the game progresses and you travel towards one of the two goals, the planets become more hostile and more resources become available to offer new tech and new features.

            Nope. They don't.

            About the only way to verify that, in fact, the content promised really is missing is to put a good 40-60 hours of gameplay in. I made it about 10 hours (although Steam says I played for 20, probably due to tech issues and AFKing) before giving up on the planets ever being any different from one another.

            No Man's Sky is one of those games designed to provide just enough gameplay experience to get you past the refund cutoff before revealing that's all there is.

        • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:34PM (#52978839)

          "You said this medicine would cure my cancer. I drank it, but it didn't work and I still have my cancer. When I sent the nearly empty bottle to the lab, they said it contained something called 'snake oil.' I demand a refund!"

          "But you drank it! If you had return the product unused, of course we would issue a refund. But you have enjoyed the product."

          "No, I haven't!!"

          "Yes, you have."

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Anyone? Even people who put 100+ hours into the game? It shouldn't take that long to determine that the game doesn't live up to expectations.

          Ultimately, yes.
          The seller is already protected by a statute of limitations, and additional magical-made-up temporal barriers are unnecessary and will harm the industry. HG 'needs' to fail, and should fail, in order for the free market to thrive.

        • by Dread_ed ( 260158 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:49PM (#52978961) Homepage

          It doesn't matter how many hours you put in if you were enticed by and promised things that don't exist in the game. You could love the game, give it honestly rave reviews, and play it every day for 8 hours. Doesn't matter. Your playing or not playing the game, or a better way to put it is, the behavior of the purchaser subsequent to purchase has no bearing on the advertising tactics and their honesty/dishonesty in describing the game. Money should be refunded based on the request of the purchaser because of the actions of the selling company previous to purchase. Everything that happens after purchase is immaterial.

          Why? Because even if someone played the game for 400000 hours, they would never get what was promised in the advertising. IMHO the penalties should go up with play time. It means that person has been defrauded of the missing material more than someone who barely plays the game.

        • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
          This was covered fairly extensively in other articles. People are making a fairly reasonable argument which is that they pressed ahead thinking the 'good' content was still to come. They had a reasonable belief that this other content existed, because they'd seen all the trailers and previews showing that stuff.
    • by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @01:54PM (#52978483)

      No, I already bought it on the basis of those screenshots.

    • by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:16PM (#52978699)

      Sorry but no. There's a shitload of videos and text which show without a shadow of doubt that promises were made and left unfulfilled. people bought the game based on the information at hand which was more than misleading. Misleading is when you hint something, which proves to be less that was was alluded to. Like "Big Trunk", which is misleading because it has no frame of reference (and even so, it's stretching things), But Sean Murray specifically said there will be some sort of multiplayer, that ships will handle differently based on their looks, that NPC factions are warring in space, that you can land on asteroids, that you can grief other players ("A little bit, yeah"), and so on. Those were ALL captured on video and available on Youtube and other channels.

      It was a big fat web of lies and deception and it was only a matter of time until shit hit the fan.

      • by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:49PM (#52978965) Homepage
        Actually, OP is probably right not to get your hopes up. The ASA is pretty toothless in practice; their track record is usually "Don't use that advert again!" and the occassional slap on the wrist fine and/or requirement to print a retraction in the media. I don't recall a single instance where they've actually required compensation, let alone refunds, be paid to someone who fell for the misleading advertising before it got pulled.
        • I don't recall a single instance where they've actually required compensation, let alone refunds, be paid to someone who fell for the misleading advertising before it got pulled.

          Can't you already just return stuff in the UK if it doesn't do what it says on the tin? This seems like low-hanging fruit.

          • by Zocalo ( 252965 )
            Yes, but that's covered by legislation and consumer rights bodies that are entirely separate from what the ASA deals with. Their remit is solely misleading and fraudulent advertising and it does not touch on the product itself; you could have a completely worthless product but provided your advert does not misrepresent it then there's not a lot that the ASA can do about the product *or* the advert.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Their ruling gives people something to cite when requesting refunds from the seller. The law says that products must be "as described". They are not the seller (not the game developer, the place you bought it from) can either rectify the problem or give you a refund.

      • by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

        Sorry but no. There's a shitload of videos and text which show without a shadow of doubt that promises were made and left unfulfilled. people bought the game based on the information at hand which was more than misleading. Misleading is when you hint something, which proves to be less that was was alluded to.

        And this is different from marketing how?

        • In marketing you're not allowed to advertise non-existing features of a product. Or if you are, you get fined at least.

      • by elrous0 ( 869638 )

        Well, at least now we know why they were so cagey about releasing the game earlier for reviewers or releasing a beta version.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by CronoCloud ( 590650 )

        that ships will handle differently based on their looks

        They do! Those big firefly-esque ones handle differently than the little colonial-viper-ish ones.

        that you can grief other players ("A little bit, yeah")

        Technically, he's right. You could do it by going to a world someone will later return to and mining resources, they were planning on getting, or taking a crashed ship, or if they did any terraforming with the grenades, using your own grenades to destroy what they did. (If you do enough terraforming, it sticks)

        And I do believe that selling enough of certain items to vendors will change the prices offered. Yo

        • by Rei ( 128717 )

          They do! Those big firefly-esque ones handle differently than the little colonial-viper-ish ones.

          No, they don't. They all have the same speed, turning radius, etc. The only difference is that on the big ones, when you get out you can take falling damage ;)

          You could do it by going to a world someone will later return to and mining resources

          Nope. It has no effect. Resources don't sync between instances.

          they were planning on getting, or taking a crashed ship, or if they did any terraforming with the grenad

  • Long overdue (Score:5, Informative)

    by MitchDev ( 2526834 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @01:54PM (#52978491)

    Long overdue to start making these game companies follow the same truth in advertising laws other companies have to obey...

    • Re:Long overdue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phorm ( 591458 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @02:24PM (#52978751) Journal

      Totally agree. NMS is really just the current culmination of years of rot. The whole industry is rotten - especially when pre-orders started becoming a big thing - with promise big and under-deliver being a common theme.

      Of course, one could say that about a lot of the software industry in general, not just games. At least with games there are ads and demos which misrepresented the end-product that one can use as evidence.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re:Long overdue (Score:5, Insightful)

          by billcopc ( 196330 ) <vrillco@yahoo.com> on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @05:10PM (#52979983) Homepage

          Even in the age of physical copies, pre-order made little sense. If a product is successful, you make more of that product to sell. If your supply chain can't keep up with demand, you build more production capacity to capture that demand before a competitor does.

          In the digital age, consumers have zero need to pre-order. There is no scarcity. If anything, publishers should thank their lucky stars that we still pay retail prices for a file that costs less than a penny to deliver, instead of blowing roughly half the sticker price on packaging, distribution, mark-up and overstock.

          Pre-orders are basically rewarding big publishers for harassing us with obnoxious marketing campaigns.

          • They know damn well pre-ordering games makes no sense. That's why they engage in the scummy tactic of making DLC exclusively for pre-order copies. And by DLC, of course, I mean content that's already present on the physical copy.

          • Pre-Orders doubly reward the publisher. A price premium on the pre-order. And all those customers buy in before they see what the current DLC scam will be.
          • Not to mention the lack of anything resembling a manual anymore....

        • In a digital world, it's not like they are going to run out of copies to sell. It's almost like a kickstarter project minus kickstarter....

      • True, I was including all software, not just games ;)

    • What is this "truth in advertising" you refer to? The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising. I have yet to see an ad for a game that is not "enhanced" in some way. The same is true for most consumer products; they're photo-shopped more than supermodels

      • by starX ( 306011 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @03:44PM (#52979459) Homepage

        The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising.

        Spoken like a crook. And there are a lot of crooks and snake oil salesman out there, and this is clearly within that particular genre. But the purpose of advertising is to connect people with a product they might need or want, and to convince them that they need or want it. At the end of the day, if I want to sell you product X, all I can do is talk about its advantages, and how it might help you personally, and I can do all of that without ever telling you a lie. You must decide if you need it / want it or can or can't afford it.

        On the other hand, if I do lie to you, and tell you product X will do something it won't, then I have committed a form of fraud, and you have a reasonable civil tort against me. But a reasonable degree of photo manipulation may be expected due to the nature of the medium. Breakfast cereal, for example, is filmed with glue instead of milk because milk goes bad REALLY fast under the heat of a studio light. An image may be photo-shopped to restore definition or color lost in the process of photography. That doesn't mis-represent the product so much as it helps present the best-face of the product. I might reasonably want to show my video game sprites rendered by the best commercial hardware available, but if I render that at colors and resolutions impossible to achieve with currently available hardware, than I have committed fraud. And it seems the NMS developers have done that. /P.

      • What is this "truth in advertising" you refer to? The purpose of advertising is to sell things to people that they don't need and likely can't afford, and that can't be done through truth in advertising.

        Maybe in the stupid world you live in. Most of the sales information I receive is in the form of Enterprise Solutions, and it has to be accurate or that company gets sued. Just because your experience is from the gutter, don't assume that is the same for all of us.

    • by DarthVain ( 724186 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @03:11PM (#52979175)

      Look at how Atari games were sold... Think that image on the cartridge has any meaning? Remember Nintendo Power magazine? Remember like every back of box to every video game ever sold? More recently, remember youtube videos of every cut scene ever?

      It's been so prevalent for so long, its now common practice for companies to embed "Actual Game Footage" in videos now because we've been lied to for so long.

      Anyway from all accounts it was all very sleazy, sketchy, and douchy what they did. However... The ending not what you thought it was supposed to be? Remember Mass Effect 3?

      I doubt this will do anything, even in the UK where the lawsuit was filed. The company is probably already toast, in reputation if not financially... yet.

      The only game I ever pre-ordered was Masters of Orion 3... All this type of thing does is delay sales for the industry. I looked at buying No Man's Sky... But thought to myself, I think I'll wait until the reviews come out. Glad I did. Just more gamers reluctant to jump on new games right away.

      Just waiting for Star Citizen to actually release as advertised...

      • Step out of the time machine. Back then you could not expect the game to look anything like the advertisment on the box. Why? Because anyone who had at least a minimum of knowledge of the matter KNEW that this is impossible with the technology back then. If an Atari 2600 game promised you "exciting racing action" you did NOT expect a first person view in 1900x1200 resolution and Dolby 7.1 sound. You had certain expectations, within the limitations of the capabilities of the console back then, and usually (!

  • >> has also been criticized for showing No Man's Sky with higher quality graphics than can be attained in-game.

    It definately looks like on the PC version at least, they're rendering it at a much lower resolution than the screen resolution then upscaling it.

    My guess is that because its a small team, the PC version has been intentionally shot in the foot so that they can use the same code for both it and the console version, rather than have to do any more work.

  • by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @03:02PM (#52979093) Homepage

    I thought there were bigger issues than just souped-up screenshots/videos. I mean, I know that people bought this thinking that it is a vast, procedurally-generated "universe" that was persistent/simultaneous for all users so you could conceivably "meet" someone (and it was indicated that it was the only way you could "see" how you "look" in the game).
    Which would have been an amazing feat of engineering, but it turned out they were lying and simply relying on the "vastness" that gave a low probability for two users to be close enough to discover it is impossible to meet (which is, of course, exactly what happened a week or so after it was released). Vast procedural universes that were not persistent/simultaneous for all users are a few magnitudes less impressive and have been done since the 80's (in fact they could fit in a floppy disk - see Elite/Elite II) and it is not how this was described.

    • I thought there were bigger issues than just souped-up screenshots/videos. I mean, I know that people bought this thinking that it is a vast, procedurally-generated "universe" that was persistent/simultaneous for all users so you could conceivably "meet" someone (and it was indicated that it was the only way you could "see" how you "look" in the game). Which would have been an amazing feat of engineering, but it turned out they were lying and simply relying on the "vastness" that gave a low probability for two users to be close enough to discover it is impossible to meet (which is, of course, exactly what happened a week or so after it was released). Vast procedural universes that were not persistent/simultaneous for all users are a few magnitudes less impressive and have been done since the 80's (in fact they could fit in a floppy disk - see Elite/Elite II) and it is not how this was described.

      Two people also were in the exact spot in the universe but couldn't see each other. They blamed it on the network load of the servers which it could've been but my guess is they didn't expect people to communicate outside the game to find each other. Once they did their bluff was called and not being able to find someone in the vast universe was actually not being able to see them.

  • by ninjagin ( 631183 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @03:49PM (#52979501)

    I've got about 140 hours in on PC, and I may be at the crest of what I can do. I've got my suit and tool and ship maxed out for inventory, with suit and ship maxed out with upgrades. Some 20,000,000 units in the bank. Learned 2 of the 3 alien languages (halfway through the last one, by now). I'm pretty much down to achievements at this point, and jumping from system to system. Visually, it's got a lot of appeal. It's pretty soothing to play -- a bit like "Endless Ocean". I didn't really expect to get great spaceflight mechanics or anything like that. I pretty much grind out on burglarizing Operations Centers and Manufacturing Facilities, looking for new tech blueprints to make a handful of technologies and materials I don't already have ... and learn that last language. It's beginning to get a little dull.

    So what's it missing?

    • Well, the NPC aliens are pretty much finger-puppets that iterate through a set of 4-5 interaction templates and then repeat them. They don't walk around anywhere or appear outside of the stock set of buildings.
    • The economy is pretty simple and even though it is nominally "galactic", you can't find or buy everything at trade terminals. There is seemingly no influence of supply or demand in it.
    • The animal life is kinda cool to watch and interact with. There ware some truly bizarre creatures out there. But, your only interaction paths seem to be feed and or shoot 'em. It gets tiresome just running around scanning them to 'collect them all'. I've only seen worlds with about a dozen or so animals, so it's not terribly rich.
    • The flora is pretty much static, but there are some grassy worlds where there's a lot of movement in the terrain, but it's simplified down to just the grass that moves, and everything moves together at the same time in a somewhat unsettling rocking oscillation that I can't handle for more than 5 minutes at a time. There are other games like Crysis where the wind will move leaves in the trees, or your shots will blow away branches on the trees, but we have no detail like that.
    • There's a flimsy-yet-huge quest string (Atlas) that is casually interesting, but it seems to crop up randomly to remind you that it's there. There's no notion of one thing or achievement or activity that leads you to seek out the next. There are no real side paths and the NPCs don't seem to be involved in any quest activity. It'd do well to have a bunch of quest strings, like a hundred per planet and a hundred per system (maybe rated by difficulty?) that you could sink into.
    • Each planet is a starter-world. That is, if you started the game afresh, everything you need to max everything out is pretty much right there on that first planet. Yeah, there are variations that force you to leave for other worlds (like toxic atmospheres and/or aggressive sentinels) to advance completely or get new materials, but once you have everything maxed out, 80 percent of all buildings and their loot or capabilities become so useless that they can be ignored. I don't even pick up random loot anymore to sell, because I don't have any way to spend the money and no use for the random crap, regardless. When you have all the upgrades, there's nothing left to build.
    • It just seems to lack a lot of rich creative content. I'd like to see more ship types, to have the ability to customize the appearance of the ships, too. I'd like to see and maybe build unique buildings. It would be great if I could build my own settlement or compound and be able to advertise it for visitors. Crafting for different types of suit skins and color schemes or ship types would be welcome .. anything you could sell as a finished thing. There just need to be more aliens, everywhere... outside walking around, harvesting resources, sleeping under trees, hunting creatures, visiting monoliths and ruins, shopping at trading posts, drinking in pubs, playing holographic monopoly or something. I've never run into a settlement that has more than three aliens and each on
  • Oh, so now its wrong to cheat people who have already submitted to other forms of abuse through Digital Rights Manglement?
  • False advertising is when a product says it has features it doesn't.

    FRAUD would be more likely the term applicable for a Kickstarter that didn't provide what it promised.

    In fact, one could almost suggest it's a RICO action.

    • by Boronx ( 228853 )

      Probably, but it really is hard to sympathize with people who want to *donate* their money to developing a video game.

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