ASA, the UK advertising regulator, has backed a customer complaint claiming that Valve had advertised a 25% off promotion for Grand Theft Auto V on Steam in a way that was ‘misleading’.
The ASA have told Valve not to run the advert in the UK again, and have also been asked ‘to ensure their future savings claims do not mislead about benefits available.’
This all follows a complaint made by someone about a promotion for the PC version of GTA V, where it was advertised to UK customers as having a 25% saving, between June 11 and 12th this year.
An advert listed GTA V at a price of £38.98, claiming a 25% discount on the game – however, the game alone is normally priced at £40 on Steam. The 25% off offer was due to the bundle of in-game currency that was worth £12.
This wasn’t good enough for the ASA who said, ‘Because a 25 percent saving was not available on the usual selling price of the product at the time the ad appeared, as claimed, we concluded that it was misleading.’
At the same time, there was a different listing of the GTA V standalone under the 25% off banner, where it was priced £38.98. Valve put this down to a software error which was fixed shortly after being identified; the ASA did not uphold the customer complaint on this occasion.