The saga ambitious space-survival game No Man's Sky is slowly turning out to be Hello Games' nightmare. After the conundrum about the refunds, the broken game experience, and broken promises made it worse. Advertising Standards Agency, U.K.'s independent regulator for advertising and marketing on the web, is investigating the digital distributor, Valve Software, and Hello Games for false advertising of No Man's Sky, reports Eurogamer.
A Reddit user named AzzerUK posted about receiving the response from ASA about misleading and misrepresenting information as well as multimedia on the Steam page of No Man's Sky.
No Man's Sky has been the subject of "several complaints" for false advertising https://t.co/9PDtFkJPOF— Polygon (@Polygon) September 28, 2016
— Polygon (@Polygon) September 28, 2016
He further added of feeling misled by the promotional multimedia being very distinct from the actual game. The ASA confirmed of receiving several complaints regarding the game's advertisements and pulled both Hello Games and Valve under scrutiny. A bevy of early buyers of No Man's Sky has a gripe against screenshots and videos on Steam showing different gameplay compared to the launched version of the game. Not only that, even the game's graphical quality depicted in the screenshots raised questions.
"We will ensure the advertisers are made aware of any points relating to other marketing material under their control (such as the Hello Games YouTube channel and website)."
"The outcomes of ASA investigations are cross-applicable to other marketing making the same claims, so any decision reached in relation to the Steam page would apply to other advertising for No Man's Sky where the same (or materially similar) claims appear."