The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has officially dismissed claims that No Man's Sky misled players on its Steam Page and in its promotional materials.
The regulatory body stated that "no further action is required" in investigating accusations that Hello Games misrepresented the sprawling space simulator before its release to the public.
Referring directly to the trailer, blurb and screenshots available on the game's Steam page, the ASA wrote, "We understood that the screenshots and videos in the ad had been created using game footage, and acknowledged that in doing this the advertisers would aim to show the product in the best light.
"Taking into account the above points, we considered that the overall impression of the ad was consistent with gameplay and the footage provided, both in terms of that captured by Hello Games and by third parties, and that it did not exaggerate the expected player experience of the game. We therefore concluded that the ad did not breach the Code."
Hello Games said that, unlike most other games, each part of ‘No Man’s Sky’ (NMS) was procedurally generated rather than manually developed. This meant that the game content was generated by way of a computer process as that content was encountered by the player. This computer process embodied algorithms that determined, for example, the probability of a player encountering a creature with a particular physiology, exhibiting a particular behaviour or existing in a particular habitat. They said the game contained 18 quintillion planets, each with its own terrain, weather, flora and fauna, and was effectively infinite in size or scope. It was unique, therefore, in that the user experience was not scripted and each user would have their own individual experience. Each player would begin the game on a unique planet, in a different part of the universe.
Hello Games said that, as each user’s experience would be very different, it would be difficult to recreate the exact scenes from the ad. However, they believed it was fairly straightforward to locate content of the type shown in the ad and to demonstrate that such content was commonly experienced by all users who played NMS for an average period of time. They stated that all material features from the ad that had been challenged by complainants appeared in the NMS universe in abundance. While each player experienced different parts of the NMS universe, there was a low probability that anyone playing the game as intended would fail to encounter all these features in some form within an average play-through. They said the game itself was documentary evidence in support of the ad and, since NMS was specifically programmed to enable players to experience everything described in the ad, they were confident that any average player could do so. They noted that some elements were rarer than others; for instance, the larger the scale of a space battle, the more unusual it was, which they believed was to be expected because it made for a more rewarding experience. With regard to the game features queried by complainants, Hello Games provided gameplay footage showing these features, which they explained showed extracts from NMS on a PC with average specifications; these specifications were given. The majority of the footage provided came from a play-through that had started from the beginning of the game and lasted for four hours. They also provided links to third party footage uploaded to a video-sharing platform by players of NMS, and a copy of the game.
With regard to a concern raised about the speed of galaxy warping footage in one video, Hello Games said there were a number of factors that defined how quickly a player would ‘warp’ to a new system. This included the specifications of a user’s hardware and the complexity of the system or galaxy to which they were warping; a system with fewer planets or less complex life would be warped to more quickly. They said players were not likely to use warping very often (usually around three times in the first 10 hours of gameplay). In the video in the ad that featured warping, the player warped to a sparse system with a single planet, one moon, and hardly any life; this took 3 to 5 seconds. They noted that the footage they provided (recorded on a PC with a similar specification to that used for the trailer) included a warp to a larger and more populated system, which took about 5 seconds. They therefore believed that the warp times shown in the ad were normal for the type of system shown, on a standard gaming machine. They confirmed that they did not edit the video in the ad to suggest that warping of this type was quicker than was actually the case.
With regard to the claim “Fly smoothly from deep space to planetary surfaces, with no loading screens, and no limits”, Hello Games stated that there were no loading screens when flying from deep space within solar systems to planetary surfaces. They said the environments and characteristics were generated in real time while a player moved through the game, including when they warped between systems, during which time the player could continue to interact with the game.
In relation to the claim “factions vie for territory”, Hello Games said that this was part of the story or narrative of the game and manifested itself through the player’s journey and interactions with three factions during gameplay. They referred to a third-party video describing the characteristics of the three factions. Hello Games explained that solar systems were occupied by a single faction; when players interacted with a factioned non-player character, they would sometimes mention their dislike of the other factions. There would also be fights between factions which the player could take part in, and doing so could increase the player’s reputation with the faction they sided with. Hello Games said they chose the word “vying” purposefully because it suggested that there was an on-going struggle.
Full report here-
