It’s that time again for that time again.
You might be shocked at how many people really care about the things that go on at Steam over the days and weeks. Take our article on Mia Blais-Côté retiring her library of games. I’m not sure how many of our readers actually bought her library, but a lot of people were interested in the inner workings of the store and why someone would just wholesale pull their work.
So in that vein let’s talk about the retirements and bans from Steam this week. Because I love nothing more than hearing from disgruntled developers that think I’m not allowed to report on these things. On that note if you are a disgruntled developer and want to make a statement, you are free to do so as long as your bankrupt behind doesn’t pretend that you’re going to drop the wrath of god upon me in court.
Steam Bans
Run!
We know this story already. Run! was banned from the Steam platform this week due to the developer and their friends running a market manipulation scam where the goal was to pump up the prices on fake bitcoin in order to make a massive profit before the week trade ban lifted and long after the prices plummeted. The scam resulted in a fair number of people getting trade banned from Steam.
Run! had previously taken part in an item scam to market a fake Counter Strike: Global Offensive music box.
MMD Girls VR + DLC
This week knocked out a lot of Miku Miku Dance VR knockoffs. I don’t particularly know why, although the forums seem to point to these games using stolen assets. MMD Girls VR was developed by New View Animation (remember that name) and published by FunshipTech. While developer New View Animation appears to be blanket banned, publisher Funship Tech does not appear to have been caught up and is still selling games.
MMD Girls VR was banned along with 10 pieces of DLC.
Honey Dance
Another Miku Miku Dance VR knockoff, this one published and developed by Longfu Qiu. It is very clearly the same piece of stolen software as MMD Girls VR. It’s worth noting that these are all ripoffs of another ripoff called MeiMeiDance which was banned off of Steam a year ago and in itself is a ripoff of MocuMocuDance which is a ripoff of Miku Miku Dance.
Honey Dance had three pieces of DLC with a fourth on the way.
Shake Your Body
Now let me know if you’ve heard this one before recently. Shake Your Body is a trash-tier illegal ripoff of Miku Miku Dance. It seems like I’m screwing with you, the viewer, at this point, but I promise you that these screenshots are from three allegedly different games by different developers.
I have no reason to believe that this isn’t multiple people ripping off the same piece of software and uploading it for a quick buck. This one was uploaded by Trilobite Animation Technology and included seven pieces of DLC at the time it was banned. Another illegal stolen game with stolen assets.
Dancing Queen
You might have thought this wasn’t the same clone of Miku Miku Dance. Sike, it’s Chuck Testa. This is yet another Miku Miku Dance clone using stolen assets and cobbled together to sell on Steam. The fourth rendition we are talking about today was sold by Ou Heng and contained 11 pieces of DLC before it was banned.
Presumably that DLC was also stolen. It’s probably safe to assume.
Beat Beauty
More stolen Miku Miku Dance content? You bet your sweet bippy. Beat Beauty is another collection of stolen assets cobbled together for resale on Steam, this time by New View Animation Limited. You may know them as the folks who sold that other fraudulent Miku Miku Dance game, MMD Girls VR. I think I talked about that game at one point.
Step Up 2020
Looking at the name Step Up you probably thought this was another crappy Miku Miku Dance clone. Double sike! Step Up 2020 is an RPG by Yaxuan Zheng. Oh and it uses stolen content from Miku Miku Dance and other properties. TRIPLE SIKE! This might be the most painful week in review I have ever had to write.
I’m going to turn into the mayor from that town in Footloose by the time this article is over. NO MORE MIKU MIKU DANCE RIPOFFS! Dancing is now illegal in the town of MMO Fallout and I dare you to send Kevin Bacon to stop me.
Developer Ban: AlphaDigital Development
Quick reminder that all ban reasons are speculation unless stated otherwise. The developer AlphaDigital Development was banned from Steam this week very likely due to a shady giveaway involving Steam gift cards and game keys. To the best of our knowledge this type of scheme is generally used due to Valve’s highly restrictive policies toward approving new games for trading cards so the developer uses giveaways to boost engagement and make their titles look more authentic.
And as we all know, these (generally Russian) troll farm developers are all itching to get those sweet trading cards so the game can be botted on thousands of accounts and used to launder money. Titles swept up in this ban include:
- Battle For Crown: Multiplayer
- Faction War
- Escape From House
- Sorry For What?
Faptastic Journey
Faptastic Journey is thankfully also not a Miku Miku Dance clone. This one was put out by HEGA Studio and was banned along with their unreleased title Faptastic Town. I don’t think you need me to tell you what the ultimate goal of this game is and it isn’t about getting your forklift certification. Or I guess it can be if forklift is a euphemism.
It’s not always obvious why games are banned from Steam and after doing some extensive research on the store pages I have to admit that I haven’t the faintest clue. The developer has simply confirmed that their entire dev account has been banned, but has assured players that they’ll be back in September or October. Presumably to be banned again, Valve doesn’t generally let these devs back.
Game Retirements
Where Is My Family is an example of why modeling children in video games often leads to terrifying results. Developer Joël Keutgen retired the point and click adventure game this past week with no additional explanation. I tried to get on to his business website to see if I could find anything but it doesn’t work and never loads.
Developer Retirement: TunaWithSalmon Games
Developer TunaWithSalmon Games has removed their library of asset flips from the Steam Store this week with the following message.
“It has been a fun time. But because of some unfortunate circumstances i will stop support of the game and it will soon be removed from sale”
TWS’ games include Ocean Of Battles and Hentai Warfare. You’re not missing out on much if you didn’t pick these up before their retirement given that they appear to be lazy, hack fraud asset flips. They don’t even have functioning multiplayer.
JigsawMania was pulled from sale this week by developer Binary Fortress Software. I have to assume that the 36% “mostly negative” review score from only 11 people over nearly three years has something to do with it. The developer did release a statement:
Today we’re announcing the retirement of our first and only foray into video games. JigsawMania is a simple yet fun jigsaw puzzle game that uses images from our wallpaper site, WallpaperFusion. However, it’s no longer feasible for us to continue to update and support the game.
Starting today, JigsawMania will no longer be available for purchase. If you have an existing copy installed, it will continue to work for the time being.
?????
Set for launch on August 24, the game ????? was retired from Steam. Who knows how good this game might have been. The story sounds interesting, although it wouldn’t have been available in English.
Based on a true story, the game tells the story of several drifting girls in Beijing: Wang Chu, Jin Xiaoxia, Du Juan, the landlord Pang Pei and the principal landlord Zhou Bin sharing a house story, plot spread in several people to help Wang Chu collect debts progress.
The Enclosure
A pretty jank looking Doom engine game, The Enclosure was pulled from sale this week after three months on the Steam store in early access. Game Caboose blamed “new discoveries in technology” which we presume means that they’ll be changing over from a 30 year old engine to a 25 year old engine for the next piece of shovelware that they will abandon after a single fiscal quarter.
Game Caboose will be premanently retiring the development of our game The Enclosure. Due to new discoveries in technology, we are turning our efforts elsewhere, and promise to return to the gaming market with fresh content.
Game Caboose had one game on Steam and depending on your opinion of The Enclosure’s credentials they may not have ever had a game on at all.
Lovely Warriors of Friendship
Lovely Warriors of Friendship is the latest piece of shovelware put on Steam by troll developer CureLovelyWarrior, an individual wholly incapable of developing original games who prefers to shove pre-built titles up and put their name on it like Snake and Jewel Match. I don’t know how much can be said about this game outside of the fact that it looks like a ten year old’s first programming experiment.
Developer Cure Lovely is really committed to the whole troll motiff, posting on the forums blaming “authoritarianism and legality over morality” for the game being pulled. Which is funny when you consider that the person who cobbled together this garbage clearly has no morals or ethics or integrity or talent or dedication to a craft or concept of accepting responsibility or grasp on reality.
It’s also worth a chuckle that the person complaining about authoritarianism has delusions of grandeur and is known to permanently ban people from the forums for the slightest criticism.
Authoritarianism and “legality over morality” have unfortunately won out this time.
But we won’t give up on our dreams!
Metaphorically, we have lost the battle but not the war.
We will not give up in our fight to heal the earth and put an end to oppression and discrimination!
You definitely have not seen the last of us, we will meet again…. and when we do, our Precureism shall stop the serpents! Kirayaba!
CureLovely has another game coming out next week that also looks like troll shovelware designed by a ten year old. It’s called Hikaru’s Imagination Rebellion. It is also likely going to be pulled for copyright infringement thanks to the creator’s complete lack of artistic ethics and integrity. Also it looks like those political “satire” games that are actually just right wing propaganda tools.
The developer has been known to throw tantrums over criticism, so don’t go into any of their forums expecting something other than a permanent ban.
SOS Atlas
SOS Atlas has been retired from sale this week by developer Third Gate Studios. The game looked pretty promising, offering procedurally generated planets in deep space as well as laser weapons and mechs. Unfortunately Third Gate Studios appears to be yet another victim of Steam’s saturation of titles.
It is unfortunate but the team behind this game has disbanded. We are working with steam on retiring this project from the store page. Sorry for any inconvenience.
The plus side is that the game was singleplayer so there’s at least content for those who bought in early.
And that’s all for this week in retirements and bans. Tune in next week when we’ll be talking about more hack fraud “developers” and their quest for total world domination.
MMO Fallout 