Tag: Ban

Steam Cleaned: Valve Hands Sunside Games A Store Ban


Stay in the Light.

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Temtem Clubs Cheaters: Almost 900 Permanently Banned


Temtem developer Crema today fired not so much a warning shot as a warning kill by announcing the ban of nearly 900 accounts from the newly launched MMO. All accounts in question have been permanently banned with no chance of appeal, with Crema stating their 100% confidence that each account has been caught cheating or abusing exploits.

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The statement that Crema won’t be reviewing any ban appeals had some members of the community concerned to say the least, as one could cite hundreds of examples of developers messing up and issuing false bans that are later overturned.

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Crema has since walked back their comment on a no appeals policy. Players who are banned and believe that it was out of error can appeal their ban by contacting Crema’s support email.

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Steam Cleaned: Valve Gives More Shady Devs The Boot


About a week ago I published an editorial talking about the existence of games on Steam that cost a lot of money and don’t exactly justify their price. Titles that look like mobile ports or Unity shovelware that nobody seems to play and not only are being sold for money but a lot of money at that. My hunch at the time was that some of these games may be falling into a less than legal realm, being used as a form of money laundering which certainly wouldn’t be surprising or the first time such a title has shown up on Steam. This isn’t an accusation, just a speculation.

Well it appears I’m not the only one looking into these games as Valve has seen fit to give several of them the boot this week. Let’s dive in.

#1: Lab3D

Lab3D was developed and published by Tantal back in August 2019 and you may need Lasik surgery if you take a look at this screenshot and don’t immediately say “paying $200 is basically robbing the developer, make it $400.” Two hundred smackers, and the developer sounds completely legitimate when responding to a question about the price with:

“No, not trolling. Consider this a kind of experiment, only shhhh. And I can change the base price at any time.”

Lab3D had one review and 51 followers. Was it a money laundering scheme? A troll game? Only the developer knows.

#2: Fantasy Smith VR

Fantasy Smith VR was a $90 product by developer Okamoto 3 Nori, and in addition to the $90 base price it also featured several pieces of DLC all priced out at $40 a pop. Fantasy Smith VR is a little odd because it started out as a $12.99 product before the price suddenly and without explanation hiked up to $89.99 where it sat until Valve banned the game this week. Out of everything on this list, Fantasy Smith VR actually seems like a real game. If you head over to the community hub you’ll find people talking about it playing it and not being happy that the developer hasn’t spoken to anyone.

One of these things is not like the other.

#3: Hunting In Ancient Asia

Hunting in Ancient Asia is another $200 game, this time by Thoth Technology Ltd. everyone’s favorite game developer. Hunting In Ancient Asia had nobody playing it, roughly four instances of one person logged in since it launched in September despite 125 followers. Thoth Technology’s ban could be linked to some questionable reviews that may or may not have been at the behest of the developer. We will never know.

Unlike the other developers on this list, Thoth Technology Ltd. actually had other games on Steam and at more of a reasonable price. In an effort to become the Digital Homicide of virtual reality, Thoth not so much released as it did spam Steam with a bunch of shoddy looking VR titles over the span of the last eleven months, one of which was being sold for $100. I have to assume that the titles sound more elegant in their original Simplified Chinese and were at some level created with education or therapy based clients in mind.

Check em out.

#4: The Ones That Remain

There is a laundry list of games that in my frank opinion warrant Valve’s second look despite the fact that if any of these titles are involved in less than legal operations those activities are probably long over and done with and the cash paid out. These are games that cost $200 (or $100), have zero customers or close to it as far as I can tell, and have no public activity by the developer.

  1. Crisis Action VR; Pixel Wonder
  2. Strike Mole/Physical Ball; Lize
  3. Mouse Run; ATM Game
  4. NUMBER; rongyao0577
  5. LLK; Chenyun0577
  6. Hiscores Gold; Alexander in Uganda
  7. Lgnorant girl doll; wandwand
  8. Adventure Trip; Sunsmaybe Games
  9. Luna and Cynthia; wandwand
  10. Shoot Pump Shoot; Aurora Borealis
  11. Blast Em!; Xiotex Studios Ltd

Third Circuit Court Mutes RuneScape Lawsuit, Again


You all remember Amro Elansari, patron saint of MMO Fallout and guy who is constantly sticking it to the man. What do you stick to the man? Chewing gum, probably.

Last we heard from Mr. Elansari, he had just come off of a failed lawsuit against Jagex over claims that being muted in RuneScape constituted a violation of his freedom of speech, due process, and human rights. Judge Kearney, patron saint of shutting down nonsense, dismissed the case with prejudice noting that a private company like Jagex could not be charged with violations of the constitution. Most definitely they could not be sued on such grounds in state court. Elansari was informed that he could file in federal court should he decide to.

And he decided to, as Elansari appealed to the third circuit federal court who…shut it down immediately. In his appeal, Elansari brought forward a fourteenth amendment complaint which Judges Schwartz, Restrepo, and Rendell noted would require a state actor working with Jagex. If Jagex had a secret state government employee that they were conspiring with to squash Elansari’s constitutional rights, he might have a lawsuit. Elansari did not present any such claim of a state actor, and as a result the lawsuit is kaput.

Elansari also attempted a Title II claim of unequal treatment which would require discrimination based on protected status (race, gender, religion, etc) but Elansari did not make any claim as to his punishment being a result of discrimination. The most recent court filing dismissing the lawsuit is below.

Source: Justia

Hero Siege Taken Offline After Hacker Bans Everyone


Let’s start the new year off with a bit of comedy.

Hero Siege servers have been taken offline for a period of time today. The problem? A hacker managed to make his way into the system and ban every account in the game. According to the news post which we have reposted below for your pleasure, this attack has been ongoing for several weeks with the most recent escalation taking down every account.

Hello,

Unfortunately there is a hacker attacking our servers and the person has managed to ban every account in the game. This attack has been going for weeks and has now escalated. We are currently looking for a fix to this and have disabled multiplayer for a while.

We are sorry for the issue.

As of 5:07p.m. EST, the issue appears to have been fixed with the servers brought back online and everyone unbanned.

Source: Steam (Credit to Gonzo for the tip)

Day of Dragons Dev Accused Of Hardcoding Ban Of Critics


There’s malfeasance (allegedly) afoot in Steam early access. Today’s piece comes to us about the game Day of Dragons, currently in early access on Steam. Day of Dragons bills itself as “an online creature survival game set in a large, beautiful, sandbox open world with multiple biomes and distinct creatures. Rule the world as one of several dragon species, or play as an elemental.”

We here at MMO Fallout have dealt with plenty of dirty Steam devs, but the accusations being levied this week really take the cake. The developer of Day of Dragons, Jao, has been accused of hardcoding bans of two Youtuber critics into the game’s files that apparently cause the game to crash on startup if either try to play. The two Youtube creators are IGP_TV and IcyCaress, both of whom have been very vocal in criticizing Day of Dragons for being a cheaply made prototype using store bought assets. So another day in the indie neighborhood.

The video posted by IGP_TV creates a dump of the game’s memory and then checks the files in a hex editor. Among the code they find six Steam ID’s that have been hardcoded to prevent the game from running.

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Youtuber SidAlpha confirmed through his own investigation that the dump contains the six hard coded Steam ID’s.

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Several parties including MMO Fallout have reached out to Valve for comment. Current Steam Terms of Service for developers state that game bans cannot prevent a user from launching the game. It will have to be seen how Valve respond to these allegations, if they do.

In Plain English: Court Throws Out Jagex Ban Lawsuit After Five Days


Today’s In Plain English is going to be a short one, but you’ll understand why when you see that the gist of it is about six sentences long. It comes to us from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and involves everyone’s favorite developer of RuneScape: Jagex. Along with their parent company Shanghai Fukong, Jagex last week was sued in Pennsylvania court by one Amro Elansari, who is alleging that Jagex muted him without reason. The lawsuit goes on to claim that the UK developer refused to provide an explanation and denied Elansari’s request for an appeal. Elansari’s suit alleges violations of due process, free speech, and human rights.

Elansari was granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, fancy legal speak for nulling filing fees, however the court took some umbrage with his claims. Judge Kearney noted that Elansari’s claims of constitutional violations were implausible, adding that the first amendment and its constitutional free speech guarantees do not restrict private entities. More so, the fifth amendment due process clause also does not apply to private companies.

As such, Elansari’s lawsuit has been dismissed just five days after being filed. Elansari cannot make any further constitutional or federal claims however if he decides to bring the lawsuit back on state charges in state court, he absolutely may do so.

As always, MMO Fallout is hosting the relevant dockets at our expense at the Google Drive. As the lawsuit was filed pro se, MMO Fallout has removed some personal contact details from the documents for the sake of the plaintiff.

Nepal Supreme Court Demands Justification On PUBG Ban


You may have read the news that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds had been banned in Nepal and thought “this makes no sense,” and you would have the backing of the Nepal Supreme Court on your side. The South Asian country took the banhammer to the popular battle royale shooter just two weeks ago and directed all internet service providers and mobile data centers to block access to the game.

Justice Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada demanded an explanation for the ban and asked the government to provide justification beyond the vague excuse that the game was distracting children from schoolwork and chores, as well as unsubstantiated claim of violent behavior coming from addicted gamers.

Unlike India where more than a dozen people were arrested for violating its own ban, it doesn’t appear that anyone has actually been punished in the two weeks that the law was in effect. As of right now, PUBG is once again playable. Whether the government will be able to come up with a convincing excuse to put access back on the kibosh will have to be seen.

Source: Gamasutra

PUBG Banned In Nepal


PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is addictive and dangerous to teenagers, at least that is the justification that Sandip Adhikari, deputy director at Nepal Telecommunications Authority gave to Reuters this week in justifying the total country-wide ban of the game. The ban went into effect on Thursday, meaning it is now in place, and directs all internet and mobile service providers to block access to the game.

It should be noted that there haven’t been any incidents related to PUBG, however the ban is due to parental concerns over children being distracted from studies and other duties. The ban comes nearly one month after Indian authorities arrested more than a dozen for violating a ban on the title in Gujarat. The Reuters article does not discuss possible sanctions for those who bypass the ban.

Source: Reuters

Reminder: Playing PUBG Is A Criminal Offense In Gujarat


PUBG Mobile: It’s not just a shooter you can play while walking down the street, it’s also a crime if you live in the Indian state of Gujarat.

It may sound like a joke that over a dozen people have been arrested after being spotted playing the battle royale shooter, but more than a dozen people in India found out the hard way just how serious the police are taking this law. The Indian Express reported this week that ten people were arrested for playing the shooter, following the game’s ban earlier this month. According to the same news story, twelve cases have been registered so far in the city of Rajkot.

“Our team caught these youths red-handed. They were taken into custody after they were found playing the PUBG game. We have registered two cases against them under IPC Section 188 for violating the notification issued by Police Commissioner and under Section 35 of the Rajkot police arrests 10 for playing PUBG despite ban Gujarat Police Act,” SOG police inspector Rohit Raval told The Indian Express.

Six more youths were arrested for playing PUBG despite the outright ban on the title. PUBG received a ban by police commissioner Manoj Agarwal, who stated his opposition to addictive mobile games negatively impacting behavior, attitude, and language of students and children.

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