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No Man’s Sky Steam Page Didn’t Breach Advertising Code, Rules ASA Watchdog

No Man's Sky developer Hello Games and co-founder Sean Murray have had a particularly rough time of things following the launch of its ambitious space exploration sim, but its fortunes appear to finally be turning around. Amid numerous bizarre incidents surrounding the small UK-based indie studio, including an apparent hack of its Twitter account and accusations of misleading pre-release advertisements, the studio can finally move past the latter issue and focus on more important day-to-day operations.

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No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games and co-founder Sean Murray have had a particularly rough time of things following the launch of its ambitious space exploration sim, but its fortunes appear to finally be turning around. Amid numerous bizarre incidents surrounding the small UK-based indie studio, including an apparent hack of its Twitter account and accusations of misleading pre-release advertisements, the developer can finally move past the latter issue and focus on more important day-to-day operations.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has recently concluded its investigation of No Man’s Sky‘s Steam page, which was accused of misrepresenting some of the game’s features, having ruled that neither Valve or Hello Games breached advertising standards and that “no further action is required” in the case. For those interested, the ASA’s entire detailed summary can be viewed here, although if you’re short on time, we’ve put its conclusion on the case below.

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.

While Hello Games can rightly count the ruling as a victory, it’ll no doubt be acutely aware of the disappointment exhibited by a portion of No Man’s Sky‘s playerbase since it released on PC and PlayStation 4. Chief among those grievances was the total lack of multiplayer, despite Murray having stated previously that meeting other players was possible, and a general lack of features.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel though – this week saw the first post-launch piece of content arrive in the form of a ‘Foundation‘ patch. You can see some gameplay from the new base-building features below and, hopefully, this marks the start of many new updates for No Man’s Sky in the future.