A U.K.-based advertising watchdog agency has confirmed to Eurogamer that it has launched an investigation into No Man’s Sky.
The indie title developed by Hello Games has been under fire since it debuted on Aug. 9, with customers complaining that the game doesn’t hold up to what was promised. Hello Games’s aggressive promotion strategy, as well as buzz over its revolutionary procedural generation of billions of unique planets and star systems in the game, set expectations high far ahead of the release date.
When gamers finally got access to the game, however, they discovered game-breaking bugs and missing features.
Some of the issues have been resolved with post-release game patches, and Hello Games has promised continued updates and support to improve the game. But that didn’t stop a significant number of users from attempting to get refunds, some of them citing false advertising.
The Advertising Standards Authority—an agency with the power to investigate and impose sanctions against misleading advertisements—is looking into the No Man’s Sky Steam store page, according to Eurogamer. In particular, it’s looking into photos and videos that some consumers have flagged as misrepresentative of both the game’s graphics quality and mechanics. One user who contacted the ASA elaborated on the investigation in a Reddit post.
While the Steam page appears to the the primary target of the ASA’s investigation, the agency told Eurogamer that its findings would apply to YouTube videos and other methods of advertising.
H/T Eurogamer
