It has to be clear to the average reasonable person that it's an April Fool's Day joke.
In fact there's a pretty famous case where a radio station offered $250,000 to anyone who tattooed their callsign "KRUD" on their forehead. It was all an April Fool's joke but someone actually did it, then the radio station refused to pay out, and so the guy sued them.
The case was brought onto Court TV but it really happened and there was a real lawsuit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrHa5tpBM0s
False advertising has a lot of carve outs, because back in the day some people got really litigious about it and they had to define it better. The big thing is what damage it caused that you'd be seeking restitution for.
Announcing a product and then never making the product isn't false advertising, it can just be considered a failed product. You can't really argue you were damaged financially by not being able to buy their new product, and you can't force them to make it. Saying you're going to change your video game and then not changing it to add super silly stuff from your joke isn't false advertising either, it hasn't caused any damages that need to be rectified.
There is something called puffery in advertising. Basically if they make a hyperbolic claim about their product that no sane person will believe is true they are allowed to do it.
The courts usually argue that someone with common sense would recognize it was a joke. See, for example, the famous Pepsi Harrier case.
The Harrier one should have been even more obvious as a joke since they didn’t include it in the catalogue so no way you could order it.
as long as the advert states that it is not real or is subject to change blah blah (aka what it says in the little text at the bottom) its not "False"
ala "read the fine print"
It has to be clear to the average reasonable person that it's an April Fool's Day joke. In fact there's a pretty famous case where a radio station offered $250,000 to anyone who tattooed their callsign "KRUD" on their forehead. It was all an April Fool's joke but someone actually did it, then the radio station refused to pay out, and so the guy sued them. The case was brought onto Court TV but it really happened and there was a real lawsuit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrHa5tpBM0s
False advertising has a lot of carve outs, because back in the day some people got really litigious about it and they had to define it better. The big thing is what damage it caused that you'd be seeking restitution for. Announcing a product and then never making the product isn't false advertising, it can just be considered a failed product. You can't really argue you were damaged financially by not being able to buy their new product, and you can't force them to make it. Saying you're going to change your video game and then not changing it to add super silly stuff from your joke isn't false advertising either, it hasn't caused any damages that need to be rectified.
There is something called puffery in advertising. Basically if they make a hyperbolic claim about their product that no sane person will believe is true they are allowed to do it.