No Man’s Sky Under Official Investigation Of False Advertising As User Complaints Skyrocket
There's been an uproar from gamers about No Man's Sky, one of the most highly hyped games of the year that many feel didn't live up to expectations. Even worse, ticked off gamers have accused developer Hello Games of misleading buyers with descriptions of the game's content and scope that don't measure up to the actual experience. That's how it's been pretty much since the game launched, though now Hello Games and Valve are both under investigation.
A user on reddit's forums says he received a response from the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the U.K. about trailers, screenshots, and general information posted on the game's Steam store page being misleading and misrepresenting the title. We're not intimately familiar with U.K. law, but according to the reddit forum member, there are regulations about providing advertising material that might mislead a customer.
"The ASA say they have received a number of complaints," the user says, adding that the ASA told him "both Hello Games and Valve have a joint responsibility, and so both organizations have now been contacted." The ASA wants an explanation from Hello Games and Valve on a number of issues, including the user interface design, the behavior of flying ships, overall quality of graphics, large-scale combat, and a several more items it identified as the top complaints.
User reviews of No Man's Sky on Steam are "Mostly Negative," with the more recent evaluations collectively qualifying as "Overwhelmingly Negative." The reactions to the game have been so bad that Steam felt compelled to put a disclaimer on the title's store page indicating that the standard refund policy applies to No Man's Sky, noting that there are no special exemptions to its policy.
"I played this for many hours thinking that I would eventually get to actual gameplay behind the endless grind of upgrading the slots in your inventory. The farther in I went, the more it became apparent that there WAS no game here. What the developers have created is an excellent platform to build a game in. They just never got that far," one of the more politely written user reviews reads.
No Man's Sky was hyped for its vast space exploration in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy. However, gamers have found it to be more of a grind than a game, while also complaining that pre-release screenshots didn't represent the in-game graphics quality, size of creatures, and so forth.
A user on reddit's forums says he received a response from the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the U.K. about trailers, screenshots, and general information posted on the game's Steam store page being misleading and misrepresenting the title. We're not intimately familiar with U.K. law, but according to the reddit forum member, there are regulations about providing advertising material that might mislead a customer.
"The ASA say they have received a number of complaints," the user says, adding that the ASA told him "both Hello Games and Valve have a joint responsibility, and so both organizations have now been contacted." The ASA wants an explanation from Hello Games and Valve on a number of issues, including the user interface design, the behavior of flying ships, overall quality of graphics, large-scale combat, and a several more items it identified as the top complaints.
User reviews of No Man's Sky on Steam are "Mostly Negative," with the more recent evaluations collectively qualifying as "Overwhelmingly Negative." The reactions to the game have been so bad that Steam felt compelled to put a disclaimer on the title's store page indicating that the standard refund policy applies to No Man's Sky, noting that there are no special exemptions to its policy.
"I played this for many hours thinking that I would eventually get to actual gameplay behind the endless grind of upgrading the slots in your inventory. The farther in I went, the more it became apparent that there WAS no game here. What the developers have created is an excellent platform to build a game in. They just never got that far," one of the more politely written user reviews reads.
No Man's Sky was hyped for its vast space exploration in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy. However, gamers have found it to be more of a grind than a game, while also complaining that pre-release screenshots didn't represent the in-game graphics quality, size of creatures, and so forth.
