SEGA admits Aliens: Colonial Marines trailers were misleading, adds disclaimer

It's not every day a publisher admits to being in the wrong when it comes to their games, but when it comes to the critical reception of Aliens: Colonial Marines, SEGA Europe what it can to curb further complaints. This includes adding disclaimers to the trailers of Aliens: Colonial Marines, essentially acknowledging that the footage shown does not accurately reflect the quality of the final game. SEGA's decision to add the disclaimers was a result of a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by Reddit users subpardave.

As the Redditor explained, he originally contacted the ASA to complain that trailers for the game, which claim to be comprised of in-game footage, bear almost no resemblance to the final game. "I submitted my complaint based on the absurd differences between the 'in game' and 'playthrough' footage that was widely used to advertise A:CM. Of course, the game looked and played NOTHING like what was shown to consumers," he wrote.

The response he received from the ASA was surprising. After the ASA contacted SEGA Europe, the publisher agreed to add a disclaimer to Aliens: Colonial Marines trailers. SEGA Europe did attempt to explain that the online trailers used demo footage, "created using the in-game engine."

"SEGA Europe understood the objections raised about the quality of the game in relation to the trailers, but explained they weren't aware of these issues when the trailers were produced, in some cases several months before release," the ASA wrote. You can read the ASA's full response to subpardave here.

The disparity between the in-progress footage shown to both press and public prior to release and the quality of the final game has been one of the major focal points early on in 2013. As several sites and users have already shown, the quality of lighting and textures shown in early demos were of better quality than that of the final release, though, to be fair, gameplay for Aliens: Colonial Marines was always questionable. Whatever the case, it appears the case listed on the ASA website is now "informally resolved."