Won't work, at least in EU jurisdiction. There is no special treatment for software here, where "deliver anything" gets you out of jail for free.
The promises including all marketing material (all the trailers) are benchmarked against of what is customary in the market made by other AAA publishers, especially if the customer paid substantially more than the usual rate for a AAA game ($60). If you as a seller want to get away with some kind of bare bones Minecraft in space, you need to communicate exactly that in your marketing material.
We all know Chris Roberts did anything but that. Instead he promised things, which are technically impossible.
This is precisely how it was explained to me, all of their videos constitute advertising. The response from the clergy was that this cannot possibly be the case because then "Red Bull gives you wings" would be false advertising.
Red Bull was actually taken to court for that, and it was found to be false advertising. The law is crystal clear on advertising in the UK and EU.
What CIG are doing as regards advertised features is the same thing they are doing for refunds. They cannot legally flat out deny a refund, so they have everyone 'waiting' in a queue for a 'refund specialist'.
They cannot legally sell something as a pre-order and not deliver it, so everything is 'still in the long term plan'.
The terms of service reflect this strategy also.
What happened recently is that devs were caught up in Chris's promises from the past, and indicated that some things were never discussed, designed, planned or scheduled. Ship theft is a good example.
Lando then has to announce that these items are still in a long term plan because any of these guys being on record saying that an advertised feature isn't coming is evidence of false advertising (there is a technical legal term for that which I forget).
Now the dev answers are all pre-scripted, they have to be to avoid liability - and remember that in addition to any legal liability arising from false advertising, Skadden has also requested all videos and all emails in their discovery.
**Networking and engine core development was abandoned last summer in order to start checking off as many pre-sold features as possible to avoid legal liability**
Everyone working on the project knows this with the exception of a lot of junior techs and contractors.
CIG will not survive a challenge from any investigative authority who may or may not be knocking on their space door in two weeks.
