No Man’s Sky Being Investigated For Inaccurate Marketing

So, it’s come to this. It’s no secret that the launch of No Man’s Sky was less-than-ideal. For starters, it took longer to land than it should have, and when it did, it was missing a lot of functionality that fans expected. Some blame other fans for building up hype for non-existent features, while others point the finger at Hello Games for promising too much.

Regardless of the side you stand on, NMS has apparently received so many complaints from buyers that the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has decided to step in and investigate whether or not there truly was wrongdoing done here.

One thing that can’t be denied is that NMS‘ appearances at certain game events showed off content that didn’t make it into the game. As unfortunate as that is, that’s not totally uncommon. Many games have been released and failed to live up to their E3 appearance (Watch Dogs, for example) – but that doesn’t mean that it should happen. If a game doesn’t match what a developer shows off, that developer should be up-front about it, and not let its loyal customers find out the differences the hard way.

Some of the biggest complaints of lacking features includes space combat, flowing water, animal behavior, and so forth. These things were alluded to being in the final game, and they weren’t, so this isn’t just a matter of gamers deciding to make a developer into a bad guy. These are legitimate complaints. Even Sony’s president of Worldwide Studio’s said the game promised “more features in the game from day one.”

What’s really alarming is the absolute lack of information coming out from the developers post-launch. While at first, people might have been expecting some missing features to be patched in later, Hello Games’ social media presence suggests it’d like the whole matter to just blow off. The last update on its Facebook page was way back in May, and on Twitter, the last post was made on August 18. That’s hugely odd as the game had only come out 9 days earlier. The absolute lack of comment only adds to the impression that Hello Games is in the wrong.

Legal matters like these never transpire quickly, so we’ll have to sit back and wait to see what becomes of it. Something tells me that the UK’s ASA might not be the only agency encouraged to take a deeper look at the issue.