No Man’s Sky Under Investigation by Advertising Standards Authority

No Man’s Sky is still having trouble escaping the drama. Now the game that has sparked intense debate and discussion may find itself a part of a new conversation, one filled with a lot more legal terminology.  No Man’s Sky was released back in early August with an impressive amount of pre-orders and hype for an independent title. All that excitement quickly began to wane, however, as players were fast to point out inconsistencies with how the game was marketed for the last couple of years versus the final product when it was released. In several capacities, the game simply failed to deliver. Between gamers’ displeased Twitter rants, to YouTube videos touting negative, albeit humorous reactions of the game, to Amazon and PlayStation completely refunding people their money regardless of how many hours of gameplay were put in, No Man’s Sky is barely two months old and has already caused a storm of dissatisfaction.

Marketing for No Man’s Sky was viewed as misleading

Now as of today, No Man’s Sky is under investigation by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA is an independent regulator of advertising across all media. Their work includes “acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.” Due to a formal complaint that was filed by a Reddit user, the ASA will be investigating whether the marketing for No Man’s Sky’s was misleading to the buyers. In the complaint, the Reddit user spoke of the game being “misleading and misrepresenting” on Steam. A lot of the issues that were brought up the deal with user interface design, the speed of galaxy/warp loading time, and aiming systems. You can read the full list of complaints and the official ASA response here.

If anything comes of the investigation, the ASA has the ability to remove any type of advertising they view as misleading. Despite the fact these claims were filed against the Steam version of No Man’s Sky, if the ASA takes action, the game’s presence could be affected in the PlayStation Store, YouTube, and any other media outlet. Stay tuned to The Nerd Stash for any updates. You can also read our review of No Man’s Sky here.

Tori Morrow

Tori is a writer and gamer originally from Vault 111, but now she resides in Chicago. She has an MFA in creative writing-fiction, runs primarily on coffee, and is an expert on AMC’s The Walking Dead. Follow her on Twitter @torithatnerd.