It’s that time once again, for another Steam week in review.
First off let’s start with game bans.
2015 title Shapes of Gray has been given the boot along with developer Secret Tunnel. Incidentally, Secret Tunnel removed their association about a year ago according to SteamDB and hasn’t said anything about the game since its release. If I had to guess I would put my money on this being an alt account for a banned dev.
2019 anime title Bokuten: Why I Became An Angel has been banned from the store this week over sexual content. Valve’s Doug Lombardi made a rare statement that Bokuten contained content hidden in its depot files that features adult interactions with underage characters inaccessible without an external patch.
Publisher MangaGamer has denied these claims and is continuing to sell Bokuten on its website. The rest of both the developer and publisher’s libraries have not been touched on Steam.
2019’s Miner_Royale_Presentation_FINAL.zip has been banned from the Steam store. Hard to say much about this one other than the fact that it is clearly a troll game. Developed and published by presumably also-fake company TS, Miner Royale is a baffling example of the failure of basic quality checks at Valve. It’s hard to believe that this thing got on the store let alone stayed on it for seventeen months before finally getting noticed.
Universal Game Studio aka Justin Wild has been banned from Steam this week along with two titles Evolution Battle Simulator and Don Juan of the Galaxy. EBS is a physics-based battle game and Don Juan is a sex game that I definitely can’t show on this website. We don’t have an exact understanding on why Justin was banned however it’s likely that only one of the two needed to break Valve’s rules for the whole lot to be removed. Or Valve didn’t like the fact that he was operating under separate names.
Notorious 2020 troll game Black Lives Matter has been banned from the Steam store after the developer admitted that it was a troll game. Released not even two weeks ago Black Lives Matter is a shovelware title cobbled together in five minutes to grift on a murder. It portrays a timer ticking down from 8 minutes 46 seconds in reference to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. The game’s reviews and forums have been inundated with racist vitriol leading to Valve handing out a fair number of permanent community bans in response.
Presumably the racist users who posted such comments will not see their bans reversed.
Now it’s time to talk Steam Retirement
1999’s Urban Chaos has been pulled, presumably not by developer Mucky Foot Productions Ltd who went bankrupt back in 2003. It is possible that this game might come back to the store at some point in the future, as the delisting appears to be related to Square Enix relinquishing publishing rights. Last month the publisher was changed to some outfit nobody’s heard of called My Little Planet Ltd.
2010 shooter Blacklight Tango Down has been removed from Steam this week by developer Zombie Studios. Released a decade ago this month, Tango Down is the predecessor to 2012’s Blacklight Retribution which itself was shut down in 2019. A film adaptation has been in development hell for nearly a decade.
2012 puzzle title Magical Drop V has been retired from Steam this week. Developer Golgoth Studio has made no statement but hasn’t checked in on this title since about 2013 and probably forgot about it years ago.
2015 “digital gamebook set within the Warhammer 40k Universe” Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion has been retired by developer Tin Man Games. In an announcement on the game’s news page, Tin Man Games revealed that the retirement is due to the simple expiration of their license with Games Workshop.
2016 game Tower!3D has been pulled by developer FeelThere. The airport tower simulator has a mostly negative 39% rating. FeelThere is continuing to sell Tower!3D on its official website where it presumably doesn’t have to put up with petty things like consumer feedback.
2016 hacker game Terminal Hacker has been pulled by Loej. The developer revealed on the game’s forums that the source files were lost and the backup service is no longer functioning, not to mention the game not quite being up to their expectations.
2017 first person stealth game Nocturnal Hunt has been retired by developer Wolf Pack this week. Despite a mostly positive 75% rating the developer has seemingly gone AWOL and has not commented on social media in several years let alone on the sudden removal.
2018 creepy point and click adventure game Where is my Family has been retired by developer
Joël Keutgen. It has seven reviews which tells us that the game probably wasn’t pulled due to its overwhelming success.
2019 VR battle royale title Do Or Die has been pulled from sale this week by developer Azimuthstar following low reviews and presumably poorer sales. The developer announced that the company had gone bankrupt and that the game will still be available to play in single player for those who already own it.
Well that is all the Steam retirement news for this week. Tune in next week when we’ll have a professional alcoholic discuss which sake pairs best with your favorite anime games. I’m Connor, hit that like button and subscribe if you want more Steam news.
MMO Fallout 