Ad watchdog looking at No Man's Sky (Gaming)

by petetheduck, Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 14:51 (2985 days ago) @ Ragashingo

This has the potential to be a significant development with regards to the entire gaming industry:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-09-28-ad-watchdog-looking-at-no-mans-sky

This line jumped out at me:

"The Reddit user who posted about the ASA's response, AzzerUK, told Eurogamer he was more interested in bringing games marketing in general back down to earth moreso than seeking retribution against No Man's Sky or Hello Games specifically."

I am all for this. We all know games change drastically over the course of development. I doubt any of us would give any developer a hard time for talking about features they are exploring or working on, and then seeing those features cut before release.

Yeah... that never happens...

The problem, as I see it, is when those features are used to sell a game, and then no mention is made of them being cut before release. I'd love to see the industry spend less time marketing games that are still 6-12 months away from release. Let devs get things into a more finalized state before releasing the big marketing campaign begins.

Absolutely agree! I was fairly shocked at Destiny's initial marketing launch. We got what? A few scene paintings, a nice video, and less than a minute of actual gameplay. And we also got a preorder button. For a game whose features were unknown. Whose gameplay was unknown. Whose size and scope was unknown. Whose story was unknown.

I would rather the marketing only start a few months out, when the game is close enough to being finished that specific features and scopes are unlikely to change. Less marketing ramp up and less development secrecy, I think and hope that's the way forward.

I don't think you're considering how marketing works. Commercials on TV aren't trying to get you to pick up your keys and get in the car and go buy that toothpaste right then and there.

The other side of this is that Bungie didn't need to sell me on Destiny because Bungie had already sold me on Bungie. Fans want information on future releases sooner than later. They aren't using that information to make a purchase decision.