ASA upholds Aliens: Colonial Marines trailer complaint

The Advertising Standards Agency has upheld a complaint from a redditor, over the way Sega and Gearbox Software advertised Aliens: Colonial Marines, by using demo footage from much earlier in development (which looked fantastic in comparison to the final product) forcing them to put a disclaimer on all future ad spots, explaining this.

“My aim was not to get fines, compensation or any of that,” reads the redditor's post. Instead, he was merely after Sega and Gearbox's admission of culpability and with the ASA's ruling, that has been somewhat achieved.

Sega apparently spoke with the ASA and explained that the demo footage was made using the in-game engine, but it did admit that the trailers didn't accurately depict the final content of the game. Therefore, Sega has “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 ASA then acknowledged that it had decided to “informally uphold,” the complaint, though it wouldn't be pursuing any further sanctions against the companies involved.

Of course games have a history of being misrepresented by their advertising and even in the games themselves, during the golden age of the FMV, where pre-rendered cut scenes were far and beyond better looking than the actual gameplay. World of Warcraft's startup movie, or Final Fantasy's VIII's cut scenes are good examples.

KitGuru Says: It's good to see the ASA holding up a complaint. I've written to them a couple of times about adverts but not had much in the way of support. Any of you guys gone to the trouble of complaining about someone before?

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