The ASA is Investigating No Man’s Sky for False Advertising

No Man’s Sky has let down a lot of fans.

No Man’s Sky, the indie video game that was launched last month, is now under investigation for false advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority, a United Kingdom independent regulator, decided to look closer at the entire problem, the number of complaints linked to the game being too big to be ignored.

The problem with No Man’s Sky, is that it featured a lot of “teaser” content on its Steam page, but the features that were advertised were not included in the final game. The screenshots that were “leaked” to the public did not coincide with the final product and the trailers were telling the story of a different game altogether.

According to Reddit user AzzerUK, complaints about false advertising piled up on ASA’s desk, making them want to launch an official investigation. The user also explains in his/her post that the most common problems that were pointed were:

• Inefficient large-scale combat tactic;
• The sizes of the creatures featured on the alien worlds;
• Defective aiming systems;
• Bad UI design;
• Pixelated flowing water;
• The weird handling of sentinels and ships;
• Fewer real options that what the trailers featured;
• No Trading mode;

And the list goes on. The key element in all of the complaints was the fact that all of the users believed that they were deceived by both Valve and Hello Games.

The only problem is that ASA is not a statutory body, meaning that even if the association finds the producers of No Man’s Sky guilty of false advertising, they wouldn’t be able to do anything but remove its advertising practice.

It may not sound like much, but it would mean that all of the material used in advertising the game thus far would be removed from the market and the company would be forbidden to use those materials ever again.

A couple of weeks ago, a few days after the official launch, customers demanded that they receive their money back because they were displeased of the quality of the game.

The indie open world was supposed to be the next Skyrim, but it ended up severely disappointing the gaming community.

Were you among those who got their hopes up watching the trailers only to find that the final product was not what they expected for?

Image source: Flickr