Probably not entirely voluntary.
Continue reading “Dolphin Barn Leaves Steam After Dev Tantrum”
Tag: Pulled
Abandonware Asteroids: Outpost Yanked From Steam
Asteroids: Outpost was the subject of an Early Access Fraudster article back in March, I pointed out that the game had been abandoned by its developer (Salty Games) with no comment by its publisher (Atari, yes that Atari). As an online only game, the fact that the Asteroids servers had evidently been offline since November (as of March) were bad enough, the fact that the game was still up for sale was even worse, that players were attempting to report the game to Valve and getting nowhere is criminal.
Since that article’s posting, I have made numerous attempts to contact both Valve and Atari with no response from either party. Salty Games, as you would expect from a fly-by-night startup somewhere in Los Angeles has zero company presence in the form of a Salty Games account on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Atari doesn’t even seem to be too sure on who they’re working with, because the game’s product page on the Atari website calls them by two separate names: Salty Studios and Salty Games. I was able to track down several people on LinkedIn listing Salty Games as their former place of employment, and it appears that the studio has been defunct for over a year now. Gone before it ever discovered WordPress.
The important piece to take out of this article is that the game has finally been removed from Steam, seven months after my previous write-up. Atari, a company whose customer support and press relations are virtually non-existent since I tried to get answers by sending emails and submitting support queries, has not responded to a single email in those seven months. They completely ignored the fact that the game was still on sale despite being offline and unplayable for months on end, and it isn’t hard to believe that they won’t realize that the game has been pulled from sale until well into next year. The official website points toward Steam’s nonexistent store page, and the forum link ignorantly leads to a full page of warnings that the game is broken and to stay far away.
So while your dreams of an open world PvP sandbox turret defense MMO Asteroids spinoff may be squashed for the time being, the internet can once again feel safe knowing that another bad game is off the market.
Line of Defense Leaving Steam
3000AD has announced that Line of Defense is leaving Steam, citing trolling and harassment from the community. In a post on the Steam forums, Derek Smart points to the lack of developer control when it comes to review bombing, the lack of proper moderators employed by Valve, and a lack of control over ratings and comments.
“You can flag a comment that blatantly breaks the guidelines. Then you get to hope that any action is taken. As I type this, there are a few of those on the LOD store page which not only have personal attacks, external attack links, entire essays attacking me – and NOTHING about the game.”
As a result, Line of Defense will no longer be sold on Steam in the coming future. Players who already bought the game will receive a second copy to be used since the Steam version will stop being updated. Instead, customers will access the game via Playfab.
According to Smart, this is not a guarantee that Line of Defense will never return to the platform.
“We won’t be the first developer or publisher to pull a game from Steam. And others have pulled a game, then brought it back later.”
Line of Defense is currently in Steam Early Access. It carries a “mostly negative” rating and is played by an average of .4 players in the last month [Source: Steam Charts].
(Source: Steam)
Divergence Online Pulled From Steam By Developer
Divergence Online is no longer available for purchase from Steam, with developer Ethan Casner pointing to harassment from Steam users as well as displeasure with how Valve is handling said reviews/comments. Casner points specifically to user reviews using offensive slurs, as well as attempts to dox the developer through the review/comment system. While the comments had been reported to Valve for further evaluation, only for the user to be banned and then reinstated with Casner put on the defensive over allegations of stolen assets.
The post on Facebook reveals that the game is not in any jeopardy and will simply be off of Steam for the time being.
So i’m sorry, truly I am, but the $100/week we make on steam just isn’t worth the constant abuse that we feel we’re almost single-handedly responsible for dealing with. We make ten times that on our old paypal store and don’t have to suffer constant abuse to get it, so if it isn’t to make the game distribution process more simple and less of a headache, I’m really not sure what we’re even paying Steam for.
Divergence Online has been the target of heavy criticism, including allegations that assets in the game are stolen from Star Wars Galaxies.
(Source: Facebook)
MMO Fallout 
