UK Advertising Standards Authority are looking at NMS

Taken from RPS (and several other sources), the UKs Advertising Standards Authority which is a body who investigates into companies selling goods through what it may believe to be false or misleading advertising are looking at Hello Games and Valve in particular over the advertising used for NMS. This has occurred as a result of complaints received by the ASA from sources who claim that the screenshots and videos used on the Steam store page for NMS are misleading.

Here's a list of what the ASA believes NMS is misleading people with by using the trailers and screenshots.

Videos:
User interface design
Ship flying behaviour (in formation; with a ‘wingman’; flying close to the ground)
Behaviour of animals (in herds; destroying scenery; in water; reacting to surroundings)
Large-scale space combat
Structures and buildings as pictured
Flowing water
Speed of galaxy warp/loading time
Aiming systems

Screenshots:
Size of creatures
Behaviour of ships and sentinels
Structures and buildings as pictured

Store Page in general:
Quality of graphics

References to: lack of loading screens, trade convoys between stars, factions vying over territory

The ASA have contacted Hello Game and Valve and are giving them a chance to remove the offending material, otherwise they can bring sanctions against them for misleading customers.

This previously happened with GTA V during a sale period in which Valve showed a discount of 25% on a GTA V banner, when it turned out that only a bundle version of ALL the GTA games was discounted to 25%.

Hell hath no fury like a NMS fan scorned, it seems.

While I see the reasoning behind this, it still feels like some blood out of a turnip bullshit.

And this is coming from someone who bought Watch_Dogs on pc.

An advertising standards agency investigating a company using disingenuous (if not purposefully) marketing to advertise their game isn't really a scorned fan, it's an advertising standards agency doing their job.

Following complaints from scorned NMS fans? They didn't go on a crusade of their own accord.

Starting to think that the "Please stop." award this year should go to vitriolic gamers.

If they've sold this game with false promises and a trailer that isn't representative of the game they've broken the law in the UK. We will see if they've done enough to break the law but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the advertising standards rule against NMS as the advertising laws are super strict here.

I just wish people would get over it and find another game to bitch about.

@yesiamaduck: I live here, so I know. ;)

I'm not coming out to bat for Hello Games here, far from it - I bought the game on day 1 and found it hugely disappointing - but I'm not one for sharpening pitchforks.

@dave_tacitus: me neither :) I just played it and forgot about it, but yeah I can understand why people would flag it doe.

Watch_Dogs doesn't even come close to NMS in terms of misleading marketing, they simply showed some gameplay which had slightly better graphics than the retail release, everything else about the game delivered.

@dave_tacitus: Go on Dave - get yer money's worth!

I believe it was the ASA who came down on COD3 for the misleading "gameplay" trailers, They are the reason that every trailer, no matter where in the world you are, has the "Actual gameplay footage" banner across it. So they do have previous with this kind of thing.

@dave_tacitus: I'm not out for blood, I've never played the game and while I agree that it does smell a little of a scored fan, there's nothing wrong with someone whose been let down by a product that they deem to have been advertised falsely to them taking it to the ASA. It's what the ASA is there for.

If the ASA got more involved with this stuff, we could start seeing games like this and Watch_dogs be released with actual footage or at least massive disclaimers of "Yo! It don't look like this!"..

And that's not a bad thing.

@dave_tacitus said:

Any video game site I look at has said that no matter how the game turned out (most of them say it's a worthwhile game even if it was ultimately a disappointment), using that original trailer on their store page is – at the very least – "disingenuous ".

If you look at it objectively, the trailer being used as a forward-facing marketing tool to sell consumers the game does not accurately reflect the end-product; on that, I hope we can agree.

It's nice that once you get something like the ASA involved, the discussion changes from "shut down HG and commit crimes against the creators" to "hey, remove this misleading marketing and we're all good".

@jesus_phish:I wasn't referring to you in my little quip, apologies if it looked like that.

@whitegreyblack: If that's the intention of the people who complained, I'm 100% behind it. It'd be great if Murray had come out and referenced this by now, but I think we're long past the stage where even an apology would gain him much goodwill.

@dave_tacitus said:

You can probably guarantee that a good number of people who complained were of the torch-and-pitchfork variety, but good things can come from it once more level heads come into the conversation; as @alexw00dmentioned, the ASA is now just doing their job. In the end, removing marketing that is misleading is a positive for end-users.

I didn't play No Man's Sky, but look dawg, when your game is randomly generated, but then for a big E3 trailer and Colbert appearance, etc., you handpick a bunch of custom-animated creatures and design an overly lush landscape to explore, both of which are way above the mean of what the game is ever going to actually accomplish, you're cheating.

I don't need Hello Games to be financially ruined over the No Man's Sky release, but it would be nice if some advertising boards from a country or two actually raked them/Sony over the coals for how those trailers misrepresent what was likely to actually be in the shipping game. They didn't knowingly deceive end users, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and just because they intended the final game to look something like that doesn't exonerate them now that they weren't able to make it happen. It's not my particular hobby because I didn't buy the game, but I'm glad weirdo angry anti-fans are continuing their campaign to bring this game and its trailers up to advertising boards in various countries, because someone needs to be made an example of. When marketing teams push trailers made up of not-even-remotely-guaranteed features and bullshots, someone needs to occasionally be made accountable for that. Hopefully all of this makes marketing teams think twice about how much they show in early trailers, because guess what, nobody really needs the hype cycle to start like 2 years out from the game's launch.

If they're going to go after Hello Games, then they need to go after Frontier Developments, plc for the outright lies that their Elite Dangerous Steam page is. The game doesn't even have a 3rd person view, nevermind everything else!

This really smells like a witch hunt to me, and I'd much rather they start cracking down on everyone rather than crucify Hello Games.

It's hilarious to me that the social narrative two months before No Man's Sky was "they still won't tell me what this game is!" And two months post release it's "this is nothing like they told me it would be!"

@freedom4556 said:

Having an Advertising Standards council make a ruling on this one game can make changes that future games & developers have to adhere to. It's about creating a precedent.

What's the difference between this and any prerendered cutscene on any other game?

Hey... it's fucking VIDEO GAMES.

I love them, but damn. If you think NMS and Hello Games are a problem, then maybe you should figure out a way to get on with your life.

Because it`s being presented as actual gameplay. If game companies showed CGI trailers and said "this is gameplay, then that would be bad too.

On a more general note I don`t get how people can be upset about this, if anything it should be a more common practice. Forcing game companies ot be more honest in their marketing can only benefit the consumers. The reason NMS is under scrutiny now is prbably just because of how much attention it has as a big release combined with the extent to which the marketing has been misleading.

What would be an appropriate response to false advertising in your opinion?

If you sell Glue and it says on the package "works on wood" and you find it later it doesn't, wouldn't you be upset? If a grocery store marked Rotten Fruit as Ripe, you'd probably be pissed right? If an online clothing company sold a person a shirt they called White but it was actually Creme, don't you think a person might have cause to complain?

Warner Brothers at least had the sense to change recommended Specs on Arkham Knight PC at the last minute because they knew they couldn't meet what was originally promised.

Asking a gov't agency to remove false advertising/misleading trailers seems to me to be a a more fair measured approach than endlessly lambasting Hello Games (who probably did try to put out what they hyped but failed). It's a measured way to resolve the core complaint that doesn't cripple HG. Heck it probably costs them a ton less to remove some trailers etc than it does for a Glue company to change their labeling.

YUP

@odinsmana: I think we'll just start seeing some kind of canned disclaimer. Something along the lines of, "The following footage was created in engine, but is not necessarily representative of actual gameplay. The final game is subject to change without notice."

@slag: That's a fair point.

My feeling is more that HG is being unfairly singled out by a very angry community of people that seem hellbent on crucifying Sean Murray. So while I think it's fair that NMS is being investigated, I don't feel like any sort of standard is being applied across the industry as a whole.

Whilst they're at it, they should investigate why Red Bull does not give me the gift of flight.

Is there anyone at GB who actually knows anything about the UK Advertising Standards Authority?

What type of action have they taken in the last two years?

Have they been involved in game advertising previously? What happened?

In the grand history of "Trailers Selling Games" NMS isn't nearly the worst offender; who else has been taken to task in the UK or other countries with similar authorities?

I'm not sure how much you know of law, but a case like this is precisely what sets a precedent that the rest of the industry would be judged by and held to.

Man, this is getting savage. Despite any misleading advertising, this is tough to watch happen to some fledgling developers.

Well yeah it sucks for them and I feel bad for 'em, but maybe change the fucking store page after everyone on Earth complains about it.

Always interesting to see people who seem to be against consumer rights, despite also being consumers of games.

This game just can't catch a break.

@ajamafalous: @whitegreyblack: Except that's not how UK advertising standards seem to work. Now I'm not British, but a quick read of ASA's Wikipedia page suggests that they're a private self-regulating agency, similar to the American ESRB. Meaning they're not government and have no legislative or judicial power.

@freedom4556: Well shut my mouth. There goes the hope for this to be precedent-setting. Hmm.

They're not a government body no, but that doesn't mean they can't work with OFCOM or any of the actual government bodies and that nothing could come from this.

Man, this seems like such a stretch. I'm in favour of organisations like the ASA but holding games to pre-release UI designs and loading times seems like an awful precedent to set.

Now imagine you've made the mistake of liking Destiny....

OT: Seems fair. Not sure what kind of authority this organisation has, but it blows my mind that Hello Games are still using that one trailer on their storefront. That's just dumb on their part.

They still have the trailer on the Steam page. Yeah maybe don't hold games to what they were like two years ago but what kind of idiots put that on their store page? It's the main trailer that autoplays.

@freedom4556: The ASA are the advertising Industry's attempt to self-regulate in the UK. They implement existing legislation in ruling on complaints and can ban ads and pass cases on to the OFT and OFCOM (our government quangos that regulate our trade and communications industries). The ASA a pretty well known and active over here.

I'm British and I complained to the ASA myself a few years ago. It was after seeing a Scientology advert on our "History Channel". They wrote back telling me that the advert had not made any specific claims, so was not actionable. (Whereas I'd thought all religious advertising was banned on UK TV).

I relate the NMS issue to seeing those pics of plump, juicy, burgers above a take-away counter, that you know will look anaemic, floppy and sweaty when you get hold of the actual product. I can't help but feel that if the game wasn't £40, there wouldn't be so much wrath about it's issues: It seems vilification is a workable mechanic for this game.

Ha. Every time I think the world is done with No Man's Sky...

@diz: @alexw00d: Okay, that more or less agrees with my initial suspicions, then. Basically, that the agency handles complaints on a case-by-case basis and any action is most likely going to be isolated to the one company/incident. This is reminding me more and more of that GTA San Andreas Hot Coffee incident, where the ESRB issued a new AO rating which caused Rockstar to have to recall and re-release the discs if they wanted retailers to keep them on shelves.

I like a lot of chocolate on my biscuit but I've yet to receive my club membership. #injustice

Some people...

@quarters:

I completely agree. Something of this scale happening to a small indie development team must be incredibly demoralizing.

I can agree that they falsely advertised the game, and I also agree that there needs to be rules set out to prevent this from happening, but god damn, I feel pretty bad for them.

I see a lot of people saying "get over it." I would typically agree when a game doesn't meet expectations. Except if you go to the steam page the first thing that pops up is STILL that bullshit video that looks nothing like the final game. Why is that still there?

It's like you all don't mind that video games are falsely advertised. Companies should be held accountable for this stuff.