Advertising Standards Authority confirms No Man’s Sky investigation

Controversial space exploration game No Man’s Sky is being investigated by the ASA over allegations that its marketing was deceptive.

Eurogamer reports that the organisation has received several complaints” and that its investigation will examine how the game was presented on its Steam store page. Specifically, it is claimed that the assets used to market the game were not representative of the final product.

Furthermore, the complaint references screenshots and videos that allegedly demonstrate both animal and ship behaviour that is not found in the game that was released, as well as written references to features such as faction territories.

If the ASA rules against the game it has the power to have advertisements withdrawn and its paid-for ad searches suspended. This would not only apply to Steam assets but also to those used on YouTube and PSN.

The game has previously found itself in all sorts of social media hot water, with the vocal masses unhappy that the shipped version fell short of what had been promised in much of the pre-release marketing.

The situation was not improved for developer Hello Games when Sony Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida appeared to criticise developer Sean Murray, stating that he felt the game’s PR strategy wasn’t great”.

It was reported recently that the game’s concurrent user numbers on Steam had dipped below 1,000, which is a far cry from the 212k concurrents it boasted around the time of its record-breaking Steam launch.