Tag: Dirty Dev

Steam Brulee: Cenokga Entertainment and Copyright Abuse


Time to put the torch to another dirty developer.

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NM: Voice Actor Payment Dispute Drives Dev Off Social Media


Joshua White nukes social media presence after call out.

Continue reading “NM: Voice Actor Payment Dispute Drives Dev Off Social Media”

Dirty Dev Beawesome Games Abusing Copyright To Silence Critics


(Update: The Tweet originally sourced in this article was removed by Twitter. We have inserted SidAlpha’s video response as a replacement.)

Today’s story covers Jonathan Slabaugh, aka Jao, head of Beawesome Games and developer of the bestselling mediocre asset flip also known as Day of Dragons. We’ve spoken briefly about Day of Dragons in the past, from the company’s unethical behavior in hardcoding bans of Youtube critics causing their games to crash upon startup. Conversation surrounding Day of Dragons has prompted an almost fanatical response from some of Beawesome’s community base with critics being harassed off of social media and one Youtuber receiving death threats for no longer supporting the game.

But it looks like Jonathan has finally struck a fatal cord in his attempt to silence critics, as Youtuber SidAlpha posted to Twitter that he will be contacting an attorney in response to a failed attempt to copyright strike a video by Beawesome Games. The Tweet contains a snapshot of an email from Youtube confirming that a video posted by Sid had received a copyright infringement notice, but that Youtube would not be taking any action under the belief that the video content constitutes fair use. The copyright notice attempts to claim that a video showing the software interface constitutes copyright infringement.

MMO Fallout has had our own encounters with the sycophantic subset of Day of Dragons fans.

Steam Cleaned: Cyber Watch Dev Manipulates Review Scores To Counter Mine


Update 1/17/20: Cyber Watch is still up to its shadiness. Another positive review from a user who created their account on January 15 expressly to play Cyber Watch and nothing else and leave a positive review within 24 hours of creating their account.

In addition, our friend kaushikarathi7 has changed their name and moved from India to Germany.

Original Story:

Cyber Watch’s developer is dumb, they are really dumb, for real. And they just made a fatal mistake.

Cyber Watch is a low quality Unreal shooter that I chatted about just a day or so ago, and I went back on the Steam page today because I wanted to see if anyone else got duped into buying the game and left a review. What I found was even better, three positive reviews two of which contain snarky references to my commentary on the game. Even better, they all come from relatively new accounts with one product. Let’s dive in.

The first review is by a user named bhadana9474, a new account that owns one game and hails from Uttar Pradesh, India which also happens to house Cyber Watch’s developer. Keshav Bhadana, where have I heard that name before? Oh right, he’s listed as a developer for Cyber Watch. I like how he references the developer’s inexperience as “from what I can tell,” as though he only has second hand experience and isn’t actively working on the title.

Now let’s look at review #2:

Another account that only owns one game from Uttar Pradesh, India. What are the odds! Ashish Chaudhary…where have I heard that name before? Okay you know where this is going, Ashish is also a credited developer on Cyber Watch.

Oh my lord, a third account that only owns one game and hails from Uttar Pradesh, India. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? 100% evidently. Kaushika Rathi, where have I heard that name before? Actually this is one is a trick since there is no Kaushika Rathi listed in the developer section. There is however a Kartikay Rathi. Related to the developer? Boy it would be a hell of a coincidence if someone named Rathi from the same area of India just happened to set up a Steam account, only buy Cyber Watch, and leave a positive review within the same time span as the actual developers and after playing ten minutes.

I was born on a day and that day wasn’t yesterday.

Review manipulation is of course grounds for immediate termination, and the attempt to manipulate Cyber Watch’s review score is just as poorly thought out as the game itself. All images referenced above have been archived in order to keep the data sealed fresh for your enjoyment.

Source: Archive, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7

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.