Hello Games' "No Man's Sky" was welcomed with great fanfare before its launch. However, immediately after its release the game faced a torrent of criticism saying that it tragically failed to live up to fans' expectations.
It was recently reported that the U.K.'s Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) is conducting an independent investigation on Hello Games on whether the company intentionally misled customers about the true content and capability of the game.
The regulatory body is looking into online screenshots, videos and descriptions of "No Man's Sky" which customers claim did not appear in the final version of the game.
Information about the game's investigation first came to fore in a Reddit thread where players shared their thoughts on the apparent silence of Hello Games.
"I'd be happy if all it results in is [that] Sean and Hello Games finally making some kind of statement about the situation," Reddit user ray_kats said.
The reticence of Hello Games has touched a sensitive nerve among gamers who sincerely believed in "No Man's Sky's" potential and the studio's efforts to make the game the best it can be. However, the studio so far has not issued any statement directly addressing the complaints of fans.
One user, lifelonglurker81, said: "An honest, sincere statement issued in a timely manner could go a long way. It won't make people happy & may make people more upset in some ways but at least they know you hear them & want to be understood."
Other users were less genial towards the game studio.
"They're not going to say anything that can be used against them in a court case," another Redditor, Ffnorde said.
User Shoden was more sober in his comments but still cannot deny the possibility of marketing fraud. "I had fun with the game and didn't expect many of the things people sort of imagined into it, but you need to do some real linguistic trickery to excuse that stuff," he said.
Sean Murray, Hello Games' founder and creator, was still exuberant back in July as he shared on Twitter how "No Man's Sky" finally reached "gold."
It's happened. No Man's Sky just went gold. I'm so incredibly proud of this tiny team. 4 years of emotions pic.twitter.com/YJoI6JVgxq
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) July 7, 2016
Several news organizations and video gaming blogs reported that a huge number of players lamented that they were deceived by the marketing efforts of Hello Games.
In fact, even Shuhei Yoshida, a high ranking Sony official, said in an interview that he really enjoyed the game but believes players had a valid reason to complain.
Now the company is scrambling to contain the situation because if the studio gets sued or banned, the company will have "no sky" in the future, so to speak.
