Ever since its launch, No Man’s Sky has been plagued with issues and controversy. From technical glitches, to lacking content, to the way customers are or are not getting refunded, the title has been marred by scandal. And now the anger against it has got to a point where it’s officially being investigated for false advertising.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has confirmed to Polygon that it has launched an investigation into the way the game is being advertised, after receiving several complaints. The target of the inquiry is the game’s Steam page, where marketing material like videos and screenshots seem to show content that’s not in the actual game.
Many users will likely be delighted by the news, since it echoes what a large number of players had been claiming. Many of their complaints were targeting the game’s head developer, Sean Murray, as well as Sony’s overall PR strategy, which seemingly hyped up the title before its launch, by promising features that never made it into the final product. Even’s Sony’s Wordwide Studio’s president, Shuhei Yoshida agreed some of the features originally portrayed were not in the product that was being sold, though he suggested they might be coming later.
If Hello Games, the studio behind the title, is found guilty of false advertising it’ll have to remove the offending material from the game’s Steam page, though that’s about it. That will likely do very little, though it might perhaps vindicate the very vocal players who’ve been complaining about the game.
Source: Polygon