is showing superior graphics in E3 and Demos legal?

[Bofferbrauer2]

thismeintiel said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:
Bullshots are perfectly legal. 20 years ago those would have been a huge risk for the company creating them due to backlash from gamers and gaming journalists alike (just look up Outpost or Command and Conquer: Tiberium Sun and how it turned out for them), but ever since the infamous Killzone 2 trailer, it seems like the publishers felt that the backlash is weaker than the cash the fake trailers generates in sales. Though if they do it too often or too obviously, then it still may backfire on them, especially on the long run when the lost trust of the more seasoned players generates a lower baseline for the sales.

Sony got plenty of blowback from those E3 target trailers.  Some people still bring them up.  Ever since then, Sony has made sure to at least use in-engine footage, and clearly label it. 

I think where it has gotten really bad is this gen.  We've always had bullshots and target vids, but not until this gen have we seen publishers just getting away with it almost scot-free.  Maybe a Youtube  vid here or there, but no backlash from gaming "journalists" or the gaming public at large.  The two largest offenders early this gen are Ubisoft and MS. 

Ubisoft was pretty bad with trailers and gameplay vids that were incredibly downgraded by the time gamers actually got their hands on the demos/games.   Ubisoft did get a little blowback, at least when it came to Watchdogs.

MS is the worse, as they actually had game demos running on HW that was much more advanced than the XBO, trying to push it off as the actual XBO HW, most likely to try and downplay the difference in power between it and the PS4.  They even went so far as to bring their bogus demos on the Jimmy Fallon show, to a nationwide audience, trying to push it off as real XBO gameplay.  Gaming journalists never even addressed it, obviously they were paid off well, and because of fanboy console wars, Xbox fans just excepted the devious action as ok.

 

Yeah, I rember the Watch_Dogs controversy still very vividly.

@bolded: They really didn't in the US? I can still remember how this got adressed multiple times in both german and french gaming magazines and websites, and never in a favorable way for the publishers.