The No Man's Sky Marketing Campaign:

False Advertisement, Misrepresentation, and Transparency

Annotated Bibliography
Emery, Matthew. "The dilemma of No Mans Sky." Arka Tech: Arkansas Tech
University (Russellville, AR) 7 Oct. 2016, lifestyle. NewsBank. Web. 7 Oct.
2016.
This source provides an example of a level headed reaction to the release of the game in
question, No Man's Sky. In particular, this seems like the usual response to someone who paid
less attention to interviews and spectacular commercials and viewed the product of what he
thought it would be. Useful quotes from this source may include: "Create a beautiful and endless
galaxy, full of trillions of planets, and leave it for the player to explore. Nothing less, nothing
more." " 'No Man's Sky' is a fun game. It just isn't the game we thought it was going to be."

"No Man's Sky: Portal Gameplay Trailer." Youtube, uploaded by

HelloGamesTube, 5 Dec. 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=WQhSP82uhY4
As stated within the first five seconds of the commercial, "all footage captured [was] in realtime." This is a good source for proving the false advertisement accusations being made about
these 2013 and 2014 commercials. Because of the first statement, everything shown should be
found in the final product. Because of the first statement, a lot of the material in this
commercial cannot be justified as something that shows off the best parts of the game because
it doesn't exist in the final product. Some may consider this a cinematic trailer, but the
disclaimer at the beginning insists that it is actual footage.

"Sean Murray May Have Replaced Morgan Freeman As God." Youtube, uploaded
by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 3 Oct. 2015,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqeN6hj4dZU
This interview is a good example of the head producer of No Man's Sky, Sean Murray, method of
marketing the game himself, explaining vague details with excitement. This interview also
provides both accurate and deceptive depictions of the game. Some accurate features include:
resource collecting, randomized creatures, and naming of planets and creatures. Some
inaccurate features include: other players seeing you, no load times, flying a ship near the
ground and the video itself was scripted and not actual footage.

"Sean Murray lying about multiplayer for No Man's Sky." Youtube, uploaded by
CrowbCat, 9 Aug. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0nuWmQ8A

This video is a compilation of times Sean Murray was caught talking about features of No Man's
Sky that didn't make it into the final version. In particular, the video only focused on Sean
Murray's mentions of multiplayer, which didn't make it into the game two years later in June,
2016. These interviews aren't exactly counted as commercials, therefore they cannot technically
be held accountable for false advertisement. Instead, interviews like these are still counted as
part of Sean's marketing strategy and helped build up consumers' mislead expectations of the
game.

Greenspan, Alan N. "Internet Advertising Laws And Regulations." Journal Of

Internet Law 3.1 (1999): 1. Business Source Complete. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
This source clearly explains important topics such as unfair acts or practices, deceptive practices,
and the difference between false advertising and deceptive advertising. A representation,
omission or practice is considered deceptive when the representation, omission or practice "is
likely to mislead a consumer acting reasonably under the circumstances." According to Alan's
research, "the phrase 'representation, omission or practice' includes both express and implied
claims by an advertiser," which includes interviews. This applies to the argument because this
definition includes interviews as a form of advertisement.

Robinson, Marton. "Building a Space Sim in a Post-No Man's Sky

World."Eurogamer.net. Gamer-Network, 10 July 2016. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
The source material found in this article speaks of the after-effect of an incident like No Man's
Sky on an in-development game called Dual Universe. "After player expectations around No
Man's Sky were brought crashing down to earth, it's hard getting people excited for another space
sim." The article discusses how some marketing techniques can set your final product up for
failure. The article also discusses how No Man's Sky resulted in a distinct lack of trust in the indie
game development communities, not to mention Dual Universe is another space sim. As stated by
the article, the developers have high hopes for Dual Universe, similar to No Man's Sky, but they
are adamant in having a simple foundation and expanding upon it, unlike the dreamlike marketing
used by Hello Games with NMS.

Moore, Bo. "Easy Mod Restores Watch Dogs Glorious Graphics." Wired.com.
Conde Nast Digital, 18 June 2014. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.
This source provides useful background information about a slightly similar instance of E3
footage misrepresenting the final product to its audience at E3. Specifically, the graphical quality
of the E3 footage was of substantially higher quality than the final product and the purpose of
these visuals were mostly for selling the systems, the PS4 and Xbox One. Through more study
and attention, we learn that this footage wasn't even recorded footage of a PS4 or Xbox One, but
a high-end gaming PC. As stated by the article, "it's not uncommon for games - especially
console games - to look better in a pre-rendered promo video than during gameplay, but we saw a
gameplay demo at E3 ... there's no logical explanation for the decline in quality."

Danny. "Watch Dogs & Misleading Game Trailers - The Point." Youtube, uploaded
by GameSpot, 19 Apr. 2014.
"For many developers, reveal trailers are their chance to elevate their game above the
competition. This is especially important if you're a new IP."
"However, over and over we've seen trailers promise the world only to fall short of their lofty
ambitions by the time the game actually comes out."
"A lot of it comes down to how games are made, especially in relation to other media."
This source summarizes why reveal trailers look better than what the consumers should expect in
the final product. Because of how the business side of the game industry works, "vertical slices"
of games have to be created and showed to the public much faster than a gaming company can
usually create an entire game. To explain this, Danny explains how Colonial Marines, Dead
Island, Kinect, and Watch Dogs marketing strategies could be considered false advertising. In
conclusion, Danny suggested that this type of advertising is becoming less and less widely used
because of how internet users and consumers can catch these shady marketing techniques faster
than ever before. In regards to my argument, Danny describes why these commercials are
misleading but agrees that false advertisements like these are dangerous.

Sayer, Matt. "We Talk to Lawyers about the No Man's Sky False Advertising
Investigation." Pcgamer. PC Gamer, 30 Sept. 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
As mentioned in the article, most cases of false advertisement in video games are unsuccessful.
Examples of this include the Aliens - Colonial Marines case, which resulted in Sega adding
disclaimers to its commercials, and the Killzone - Shadow Fall case, which was dismissed
because the evidence for false advertising (graphical difference) was too minor and insufficient.
The article also includes a resolved case which pertained to a Nvidia graphics card, GTX 970,
whereas Nvidia agreed to pay out $30 to all purchasers, stating that "the promotional
material was misleading" and "the confusion was unintentional." Out of the three cases listed, the
Colonial Marines case is most similar to what No Man's Sky is being attacked for; false
advertisement that can't be easily defined. According to Morrison, "the frustration and
disappointment surrounding No Man's Sky [is attributed] to a misinterpretation of the marketing
material... Is it a legitimate complaint? Yes. Is it a legitimate legal complaint? No." The article
concludes with useful interpretations of how this backlash will affect other indie developers
negatively and stifle creativity.

Caldwell, Brendan. "The Broken Promise Of No Man's Sky And Why It

Matters." Rock Paper Shotgun PC Game Reviews Previews Subjectivity.
Positive Internet, 17 Aug. 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
This article discusses how false advertisement in video games can be easily overlooked, what
Hello Games could have done differently, and how huge public expectations (hype) can cause
problems . Also note that Brendan never speaks of these marketing techniques as illegal, despite
still referring to some characteristics as false advertisement. Brendan references a trailer of

another popular video game franchise, BioShock Infinite, for including gameplay like footage
that was "thinly-veiled first-person cinematics." Brendan then claims that the idea of shrugging
off these misleading trailers exhibits "a narrow-minded and anti-consumer attitude." Brendan then
disrupts the popular arguments that claim that the material simply hasn't been found yet or will be
added later by writing "the game is out, the game is expensive, and we have to judge it based on
what can be seen here and now." A good way to help avoid or lessen these backlashes from
comparing the early trailers to the final release is being more transparent about the development
process through the use of disclaimers or taking advantage of the accepted early access model.