Activision Forced to Pull Misleading Call of Duty ads

Activision, a very well-known publisher in today’s video game market, is being forced to pull their ads for their latest WWII shooters ‘Call of Duty: Big Red One’ and ‘Call of Duty 2’ because they were misleading according to the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Instead of using actual in-game gameplay, the ads used pre-rendered footage of the games. Activision tried to defend their selves saying that this is ‘common practice’ in the video game industry, but even so, these ads are being considered false advertising as they are not the exact product being shown.

Activision is not the only party guilty of this, however. Open up any video-game related magazine today and take a look at some of the ads or previews, and what you see in the screens are sometimes barely even close to what the actual game looks like in motion. Remember those amazing screen-shots of Halo 2 that previews in video game magazines claimed to be of the “Actual gameplay”? Well, the turned out to be pre-rendered footage or just cinematics, though video game publications may be getting paid to boast these claims to build up hype.

Although Activision said they were in ‘good faith’ when producing these ads, I can’t say they are. Although they are not the only game company guilty of this, they were the first to get caught red handed, and there are thousands of people who buy games based on what the back of the box looks like (though keep in mind I am certainly not one of them), and then when they actually pop the game in, they end up disappointed. Although buying a game based on screen shots is never a good idea, when they see “actual footage” on television commercials and the game itself turns out to be vastly different from what is seen, then you know there is a problem, in which Activision has on their hands now.