14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher SEGA admits that it has deceived gamers with the trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines, the first-person shooter that was launched earlier during the year.
A gamer known on Reddit as subpardave has complained about the difference between trailers for Aliens and the final look of the game to the Advertising Standards Agency in the United Kingdom.
SEGA was forced to answer the allegations and the authority said that, “Sega Europe acknowledged your objection that the trailers did not accurately reflect the final content of the game. They agreed to add a disclaimer, both on their website and in all relevant Youtube videos, which explains that the trailers depict footage of the demo versions of the game.”
The complaint from the player is informally upheld.
The decision from the Advertising Standards Agency added, “Our role in cases such as this is to ensure that marketing material isn’t likely to materially mislead the public. We consider that with this disclaimer in place, customers are unlikely to get the impression that the trailer shows the finished product, and the ads are therefore unlikely to mislead.”
Once the disclaimer is added, ASA believes that no players will be deceived and that anyone who buys Aliens: Colonial Marines will know exactly what kind of game experience they are getting access to.
It’s unclear whether there’s any way of making SEGA compensate those who have already bought the video games based on the false ads that it has been running both before and after Aliens was out.
After the game was launched, rumors suggested that Gearbox was not in charge of the actual development process because it chose to focus its efforts on the success of Borderlands 2.
Since then, the team has delivered a huge patch for Aliens that’s designed to eliminate a number of bugs and improve the overall experience.