Tag: Steam

Steam Cleaning: Valve Bans Yet Another Title For Impersonating Dota 2


It must be a day ending in Y, because Valve has terminated yet another Russian developer for publishing a game on the Steam marketplace with the express purpose of scamming items from established Valve titles. In this case, the creator in question was able to change the title of his game to Dota 2, including adding the official Dota 2 logo as his own, and began uploading items with the same art, description, and titles as those in Dota 2. The developer would presumably be able to distribute items to himself and friends in order to better facilitate their crimes.

Thankfully Valve implemented changes the last time this incident occurred, adding a warning to players trading for items from a game they do not own. This developer went even further and apparently discovered an exploit that allowed him to upload items without approval. In order to stem scams, Valve requires that games past a certain trust threshold before they can make use of Steam inventory and trading cards.

A Valve representative posted that the exploit has been patched.

“Scammers figured out a way to get items in the Steam economy without having their game approved for release first. We fixed that today.”

The title was quickly removed and has been virtually scoured from Valve’s systems, going as far as deleting the app and its community hub entirely.

(Reddit)

Steam Cleaning: Valve Has Banned More Than 150 Games This Month


Who says Valve doesn’t clean up their trash? Other than everyone.

Back when Valve issued a new directive that the company would no longer be curating titles with the exception of illegal games and troll titles, opting instead to merely allow its algorithm to bury lower quality titles in the furthest depths of the Steam store where nobody will see them anyway. More recently, the company has been on a bit of a ban spree, seemingly taking out developers releasing shovelware and asset flip titles.

According to Steam Tracker, Valve has banned more than 150 titles this month alone. Most of the titles appear to fall into categories of asset flips, obvious troll titles, and low quality flash-looking games. We were unable to ascertain how many developers this list spreads across, but Valve often deletes a developer’s entire catalog when one title is banned. Many of the titles had initially released as far back as January/February, but some others hadn’t even hit the market yet.

Steam Introduces Updated Filtering, Adult Only Games


Several months after announcing impending changes to its storefront, Valve this week implemented a number of changes to Steam to alter what players see and what they can opt to ignore.

First and foremost, the upcoming release list is being changed to “take into account the pre-release interest in a game — that is to say, data we gather through wishlists, pre-purchase, and a developer’s or publisher’s past titles.” Users will be able to see a customized list of upcoming titles generated based on the developers they follow, their wishlists, their play data, and more.

The raw unfiltered list will still be available for those who prefer it.

Secondly to this update are improved tools that users can take advantage of to ignore certain things that they do not want to see on the Steam store. In addition to it now being possible to ignore games by developer/publisher, users can ignore up to ten tags as well as set their filtering to ignore games with mature content, or allow mature content but block sexual content.

A second set of changes was focused on improving how you can ignore things you’re not interested in. In the past you’ve been able to ignore individual games or product types (like VR, or Early Access) you didn’t want to see again. But now we’ve added ways for you to also easily ignore individual developers, publishers, and curators.

Developers will now be required to contextualize the mature content in their games, if there is any, similar to how the ESRB collects data to determine ratings. Valve will simply collect that data and use it to allow gamers to filter out titles that they do not want to see.

Finally, Valve noted action taken against a number of developers publishing titles that fell under the trolling rules that Steam has in place, noting that the wide variety of games and publishers were actually a very small number of bad actors. In regards to the new requirements above, Valve will be going through the back catalog to ensure compliance with titles that are already on the Steam store.

Valve also detailed how it determines a “troll game” in vague wording, which we have quoted in its entirety below:

“Our review of something that may be “a troll game” is a deep assessment that actually begins with the developer. We investigate who this developer is, what they’ve done in the past, their behavior on Steam as a developer, as a customer, their banking information, developers they associate with, and more. All of this is done to answer the question “who are we partnering with and why do they want to sell this game?” We get as much context around the creation and creator of the game and then make an assessment. A trend we’re seeing is that we often ban these people from Steam altogether instead of cherry-picking through their individual game submissions. In the words of someone here in the office: “it really does seem like bad games are made by bad people.”

[Giveaway] Dream of Mirror Online Late Summer DLC


This week MMO Fallout has partnered up with Dream of Mirror Online to bring you Steam codes for the Summer DLC launching this week. We have plenty of keys to give out, so if the group below is redeemed by the time you see this, a second batch will be coming out the same day.

Summer may be coming to a close, but come celebrate one last hurrah of the Summer season in Dream of Mirror Online! Deck yourself out in style with some new summery threads, surfboards, super soakers and other fun summer themed items!

There are no region locks or expiry dates to the DLC code. Please read the instructions below carefully before redeeming your key.

  •    Obtain a beta key.
  •     In the Steam app, from the “Games” menu pick “Activate a Product on Steam…”
  •     Follow the steps and enter your key when prompted. The DLC content will be installed to your Steam Profile
  •     Once the DLC has been released, log into DOMO and the DLC pack will be sent upon logging in
  •     The DLC is sent to the first character on your account. The DLC packages won’t open unless if there is space in your character’s inventory.

[keys id=21030]

Female Costumes
Hawaiian Swimsuit(F) – 14 days
Seaside Swimsuit(F) – 14 days
Male Costumes
Hawaiian Swimsuit(M) – 14 days
Seaside Swimsuit(M) – 14 days
Unisex Items
Ice Cream – 7 days
Sunscreen – 7 days
Supersoaker – 7 days
Snorkel – 14 days
Sharkbite Surfboard – 7 days
Radical Surfboard – 7 days
Retro Surfboard – 7 days
Magma Surfboard – 7 days
Hawaiian Surfboard – 7 days
Jungle Surfboard – 7 days
Beach Ball – 7 days
Beach Umbrella – 7 days

Steam: Rend Enters Early Access To Mostly Positive Reviews


Team-based survival game Rend has entered early access on Steam this week, and the reviews are so far looking mostly positive. Developed by Frostkeep Studios and published by the same, Rend is a game inspired by Norse mythology that tasks players with building their faction’s stronghold and then of course battling it out with both other players and creatures that populate the landscape.

Initial response has been positive, with the game gathering a 75% mostly positive rating on Steam.

“Since we first announced Rend, we have been developing it side by side with our players through Pre-Alpha and Alpha testing and by gathering feedback through Discord and our official channels,” said Jeremy Wood, co-founder and CEO, Frostkeep Studios. “Our goal has always been to transform the way players interact and participate in survival games while delivering on the fantasy that they have come to expect from this genre.”

Frostkeep Studios is an independent developer whose list of talent includes names from vanilla World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and League of Legends.

[Steam Direct] Valve Isn’t Doing Basic Checks On Marketplace Items For Scams


Actions speak louder than words, and for Valve and Steam nothing furthers the allegations that the company doesn’t put much stock in the quality of its services than the repeated instances of outright fraud that have occurred on the Steam platform over the past few years. We’ve seen meme games, troll games, asset flips, abusive developers, Greenlight vote fraud, a developer taking critics to court, and of course the repeated return of Ata Berdiyev who Valve repeatedly ignore until whatever latest game he is involved with starts bringing embarrassing attention to the Steam store.

Our latest controversy comes to us in the form of scam artist indie developers and Steam items. Valve has opened up the floodgates allowing developers to give their games inventories with tradeable items on the Steam market and, as usual, they have put absolutely zero effort into quality control and as a result, some shady developers have come out of the woodwork to start exploiting the unchecked system. Reports are popping up from numerous communities of developers uploading items that are visually identical to items in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2, in order to con unsuspecting players into making trades.

This type of scam is different than what we’ve seen in the past, although it has been spotted before, because it directly implicates that game developers themselves are knowingly taking part and likely even perpetuating the scams. In addition, it shows that Valve is doing next to nothing in regards to checking against its sellers shenanigans. Are they vetting logos? No. Are they vetting tradeable items? No.

In the case of Abstractism, that includes tradeable items like the Team Fortress 2 rocket launcher knockoff shown above, the game has shown that Valve isn’t even properly vetting their games for viruses or other malicious programming. Abstractism has numerous negative reviews noting that the game is being flagged by several anti-virus programs as containing a trojan horse virus, uses a shady looking steam services executable that may or may not be authentic, and thanks to the work of several sleuths on the net, has more or less been shown to be a cryptocurrency mining operation.

Both games we’ve shown in this article, Abstractism and Climber, have been removed from Steam and their developers presumably banned from selling further titles. It does show, however, that Valve’s commitment to dealing with troll or illegal games is hollow, if not mostly fabricated.

Fantasy Survival Game Rend To Launch In Early Access This Month


Frostkeep Studios has announced today that their title Rend will launch on Steam early access later this month. Dubbed a faction-based fantasy survival title, Rend was created by a studio formed from veteran Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and League of Legends developers. Rend introduces RPG mechanics, sandbox elements, win/loss conditions, and massive battles. Early Access will be available on July 31, with the game available for $29.99.

“Early access marks a pivotal moment for Frostkeep Studios,” said Jeremy Wood, co-founder and CEO, Frostkeep Studios. “We have been developing Rend side-by-side with our players since we first announced the game and are grateful for the invaluable feedback they provided to help shape Rend into what it has become today: the game they want to play.”

The Culling 2 Is Dead On Arrival, Can’t Fill Single Match On Launch Night


What’s worse than not being able to fill a single 100 player match of Battle Royale? Not being able to fill a 50 player match. We’ve talked briefly about Xavient, a developer whose previous title launched into early access and over the course of two years managed to run its population down into the low double digits thanks to a series of missteps, only to abandon said game shortly after launch and begin work on the sequel. We wondered how players would react to the sudden announcement of The Culling 2 and whether or not the community would come back around for a second try.

Well the verdict is in and the answer is a resounding no, the community did not come around for a second time. While The Culling peaked out at over 12 thousand players, The Culling 2 hit launch day with a maximum concurrency of just 249 with less than 25 playing as of this writing. Reviews currently stand at a 13% “Very Negative” rating with nearly a fifth of all of the positive reviews being outwardly sarcastic in their praise.

And we’re not the only ones to notice. PC Gamers’ Christopher Livingston penned a piece reliving his experience winning a match before he even hit the ground, owing to his competition being one singular player who disconnected at the start of the round. Nadia Oxford over at Us Gamer noted the negative reaction from fans of the original title to the unveiling of The Culling 2. Even the official Culling Twitter account is aware of today’s launch performance.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The Culling 2 is available on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

After Abandoning The Culling, Xavient To Launch The Culling II


Following two years of early access, developer Xavient launched and then almost immediately abandoned its Battle Royale game The Culling in October of 2017. By the time the game launched, and thanks to numerous unpopular changes with the community, the average player base had sunk from its peak of 12,000 to not enough to fill a whole server. Current reviews sit at a 32% mostly negative rating.

But in case you’re still looking to toss your simoleons at a new Battle Royale game, Xavient is back to do it all over again. The Culling II has been revealed and it will launch, presumably not in Early Access, on July 10 for the sum of $20. The trailer, now available on Youtube, has been met with overwhelmingly negative response; a 9:1 negative to positive rating with players criticizing Xavient for abandoning the melee focus of The Culling and creating what is perceived to be a cheap PUBG clone.

The Culling II will also launch for Xbox One and Playstation 4.

[Column] Bulkhead Interactive Asks Community To Manipulate Steam Reviews


Bulkhead Interactive is playing with fire, and I have a feeling they’re going to get burned.

World War 2 shooter Battalion 1944 currently stands at a 31% “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam, with 115 currently playing users and an all time peak of 16,341. Earlier today, Bulkhead’s community manager posted a thread on the game’s Reddit page asking the community to review, which can be very easily interpreted as “review positively,” especially given the explicitly stated goal of this campaign is to improve the game’s recent review score from mostly negative to mostly positive.

The statement very coyly tries to avoid any guaranteed accusations of review manipulation by telling players that their reviews can be positive or negative, it doesn’t matter as long as they’re giving their feedback. I have to wonder who Bulkhead thinks they’re fooling by trying to play dumb, especially when comments like the one below are being made to players who say that they enjoy the game, but don’t want to give a positive review because the player base is so small. Since Battalion is an online-only multiplayer game with no bots, the low player base can make the game nigh unplayable at off-peak hours.

“Player numbers are not the game that you’re reviewing, is the game good is the question.”

So give the game a positive or negative review, it doesn’t matter, just remember that you’re not to review the game based on criteria that we (Bulkhead) don’t approve of. Specifically criteria that would make the game look bad, like its low player count. Bulkhead even went so far as to dangle an incentive for getting the review score up, noting such feat as a prerequisite for the company to hold a sale.

“Any player who would like to leave a review, please do so as soon as possible. The reason being is that we would like to see the ‘Recent Reviews’ change as soon as possible, so that we can do our first sale. It’s a very achievable task but one that requires the community, new players, devs, and old players to work together.”