No Man's Sky Investigated for False Advertising

Sean Murray's smug face won't survive in prison 

".. the words are staring to blur now, cause the Dayquil is kickin in."

Dude, we have ALL been there done that

Fucking Christ. If only gamers were this fucking active and up in arms about shit that actually matters in their fucking lives.

"My taxes don't go towards the country, but instead they go to pay off loans the government takes out from the Feds? Meh, whatever. A game doesn't play like it was advertised?! Fuck them! Burn them all!"

The irony of defending millennials in a previous FH video and then seeing this shit does not escape me.

No Man Sky's hasn't got my $60 and glad they didn't.  

The game looks too big for me play at the time.  

Does Lawrence have to shave at all? If so what would happen if he didn't?

They should have interviewed Spoole about this story.

Adam geting drunk on Dayquil is just funny.

That aside I am never a fan of punishment of a really abitious game like NMS, but in this case I feel that people getting refunded for it is a good response. In this very case there was far too many instances of what was going to be in the game and didn't actually appear. I didn't like the game myself, the idea and fundimental systems it has was impressive and with a bit more clarity of that it may well have still met a decent audience that would have loved it.

I personally bought it specifically for a lot of what isn't there, the main being multiplayer so I requested a refund for it. It's one of the few titles I have done this with, because generally there's always a means to see what is or isn't going to be in the game and if I'll like it or not.

I hope this isn't a death knell for this team, they have done a great amount of work on a game that fundimentally is a technical achievement. With the right kind of marketing and being honest about things like MP it would have probably have been succesful and not suffer this kind of public relations knightmare they are in at the moment.

You kinda skipped over a couple of relevant and potentially important facts. In the Atari case they had to run their ads past the ASA committee before they could be used in the UK... all of them. That is a small (but for a large company) important delay and extra cost.

I suspect that Valve will not be hit with it but can you imagine if every steam page had to be vetted by the ASA before it could be posted? or updated? That is way more onerous than any fine and it is permanent until the ASA says otherwise. As for Hello Games I don't suppose they would have an issue because the impact would be very minor for them.

The other point to note is that continued infraction or failure to submit things to ASA's committee is a breach of law. So with that comes a lawsuit. Not sueing but a you broke the law lawsuit - the requirements are higher to prove breach but the punishments end somewhere north of jailing the CEOs of the company(s) involved.

So a better way to describe what the ASA does (and extremely successful it is in controlling advertising in the UK) is to rap the fingers of the offender (can't run the ad again), possibly give them some lines (must submit future ads to the their committee for checking) and place a large bear-trap in front of them (if they don't comply then they step into serious trouble territory).

P.S. And this is why the system works so well, especially with big companies and powerful people; you'll note that no amount of money will save you from this system - playing nice with the ASA and not being a lying bastard in your ads will save you...

Basically the point is, Spoole was right.