Starfield does not have an open beta, despite what a sponsored link on Google might lead you to believe. people in Reddit (thanks, Jean) recently discovered that the ad was shown to some at the top of Google search results, but again, there is no beta version of Starfield.
The sponsored search result appears to have been paid for by a company called bizongrow, an advertising company that says it helps businesses get good results on Google’s search engines. The announcement of the supposed beta version of Starfield claims that people can “join the adventure” to play the open-world game with friends. The text uses the wrong style for Starfield, writing it as StarField. The link appears above the official Starfield page on the Bethesda website in Google search results because it is a paid, sponsored result.
This is obviously intended to mislead Google users, and people should not click on the link. In any case, it has led some to wonder why Google allowed this in the first place. After all, Google’s own advertising policies suggest that this sort of thing should not be allowed.
In the “prohibited practices” section, Google specifies that advertisers may not serve ads that “attempt to deceive or circumvent our ad review processes.” The policy goes on to state that Google does not allow ads to hide the true destination to which users are sent.
The bizongrow page directs people to a website that supposedly contains an executable file, according to pc gamer. And there’s no telling what might be in that file, but we can say for sure that it’s not a beta version of Starfield.
PC Gamer also notes that the bizongrow website was only registered in April, and that the company may or may not be real. The website is registered to an unspecified person with a postal address in Reykjavik.
This story was brought to us by Jean Carrasquillo. Thanks Jean. GameSpot has contacted Google in an attempt to get more information.
Starfield launches on September 6, 2023. It will launch on Xbox Series X|S and PC via Game Pass on day one. It will also be available on Xbox One, not natively but via streaming.
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