Tag: Steam

[Community] The Beast That Wouldn’t Stop It


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It’s time for another Community Monday here at DH Fallout, the website that used to cover those online games, and as usual I have another Digital Homicide update for you. The last post on Digital Homicide got such a huge response that it shut down the website for part of the day. The positive side is that it spurred me to upgrade us to Cloudflare, so this shouldn’t be a problem going forward.

Despite having nearly two dozen of their games slammed with an “incompatible with Greenlight” sticker from Valve, rejection both by the gaming community at large and now their would-be host doesn’t seem to be slowing the developer down. No, on Sunday the 5th, Digital Homicide added another seven games to their Greenlight portfolio. Let’s break them down:

  • Barnacle Explorer Sub: Fish Rescue – Another Space Invaders clone, the exact same looking game from the dozen other clones DH uploaded last week.
  • Barnacle Explorer Sub: Shark Rescue – A clone of the game above, but with sharks instead of fish.
  • Barnacle Explorer Sub: Octo Helper – A clone of the game above, but with octopus instead of sharks.
  • Mike the Astronaut: Battle on Arturian Twelve – A clone of the game above, but in space.
  • Star Scream on Orion – Looks like a clone of DH’s other game, Decimation of Olarath.
  • Sharktastic Yum Yums – Probably as close as you’ll get to an original Digital Homicide title.

What caught my eye is the last game on the list, Clickerton Gang. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why this game in particular was screaming for my attention, at least not until a couple of people on Twitter pointed it out: We’ve seen Clickerton Gang before.

Clickerton Gang was first put up on Greenlight by user Bobmiddleton80, an indie developer who appeared out of the blue with three games ready for the Steam community to vote on. We first heard of Bob Middleton under allegations that the account was actually a sock puppet of Digital Homicide. One of Middleton’s games, as it turns out, was Clickerton Gang. In what can only be pure coincidence, the logo for Clickerton Gang bears a strong resemblance to Digital Homicide’s game Wyatt Derp. You might even say it looks like two alternatives to the same stock photo.

You have to imagine that Valve is getting tired of Digital Homicide’s shenanigans. The seven new games weren’t even up for a day and Valve has already struck down five of them as incompatible with Greenlight. This leaves DH with 50 games currently on Greenlight. 26 of its titles are listed as “incompatible with Greenlight.”

With the developer shoveling more trash into the pile every week and Valve increasingly stomping down on it, you have to wonder how long it takes until the developer is blacklisted from uploading new titles period, and whether or not that will be enough to prevent an entity that has had no problem changing its name in the past.

[Not Massive] Valve Just Struck Down Digital Homicide


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In the world of Steam and shady developers, no name has drawn quite as much hatred from the gaming public like Digital Homicide. Not unlike similar personalities including Uwe Boll, Digital Homicide’s notoriety is only superseded by the fact that the perception of its following is much higher than the real numbers. What it does have, however, is the ability to flip Unity engine assets and turn those into cookie cutter games that are quickly becoming parodies of themselves.

downloadFast forward to Steam Greenlight, a service that Digital Homicide has flooded with dozens of titles. As of this publishing, the company has more than forty titles in its Greenlight section. You read that correctly, more than forty. In their rush to clutter the service with as many titles as possible, Digital Homicide has resorted to putting out entire series of games that appear to be quite literally the exact same game but with different stock images.

To the left is Daisy’s Sweet Time: Cupcake Mania 3. It is identical to the other two iterations of the game plastered on Greenlight, and functionally it is also identical to Merle Wizard Extraordinaire #1, 2, and 3, all posted on the exact same day. Those games, in turn, are identical down to the placement of enemies, to Sarah to the Rescue, and its four sequels. Eleven games, all posted to Steam on the same day, all completely identical except for the art. As of this posting, there are more than a dozen Space Inavders clones up on Greenlight through Digital Homicide.

download (1)And the list goes on. Games that are reskins of other Digital Homicide games, sequels upon sequels that are the exact same title coming out at the same time as the original, functionally identical except for slight changes in art.

Because I am a veritable soothsayer of the gaming industry, I started this piece yesterday to convey the message that Valve should do its job and strike these games down. As so happens in the magical box that is the WordPress draft folder, my wish was granted and Valve has struck down many of Digital Homicide’s current Greenlight games.

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If you head over to their workshop, you’ll notice that a good two dozen of Digital Homicide’s games have been blackmarked by Valve as “incompatible with Greenlight.” Whether or not this fully disqualifies titles for release is up for debate, however Valve has clearly shown their disapproval for Digital Homicide’s release tactics.

Overall, 22 of Digital Homicide’s games have been slapped with an incompatible tag. Despite being labeled as incompatible, Wyatt Derp 2 is still available for purchase. Granted, the game was made available before Valve tagged the title, so the future of Digital Homicide’s presence on Steam is certainly in question.

MMO Fallout will update with more information as it becomes available.

Kings and Heroes Goes On Early Access Today


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Kings and Heroes feels like a game out of Dungeons and Dragons, and those interested in plundering its depths can do so starting today. Billed as an ARPG, Kings and Heroes presents players with randomly generated dungeons, persistent content, and a seamless open world.

With hundreds of players in each world you’ll have plenty of company to explore by foot or on horseback. Discover towns, villages, ruins, ghost towns, high mountains, lakes, and valleys across varied environments. You’ll travel in realistic day and night cycles with true weather effects. Be warned, many dangerous creatures inhabit the world so an adventurer must always be prepared for a fight.

The game will go live in about three hours from this posting, after which it will be available for $29.95. Those who create a character within the first week will receive a small handful of exclusive items.

(Source: Steam)

Wild Terra Beta Key Giveaway


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MMO Fallout has partnered with Wild Terra to hand out beta keys to 30 lucky (or fast acting) gamers. Wild Terra bills itself as an MMO life simulator in a fully developed player-driven medieval world. The game is currently on Steam Greenlight seeking approval and Juvty Worlds would like to get you in as soon as possible.

Check out the trailer and grab a key for yourself. Players will also receive a Steam key once the game goes live on said platform. Don’t forget to vote for Wild Terra on Steam Greenlight (link above).

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That player gets after the activation key:
– Early access to the game
– 5 premium days
 
Instructions on how to activate the key:
1. go to the website http://www.playwildterra.com/
2. Download and install the game client http://www.playwildterra.com/files/
3. Launch the game, sign up and enter the key.

Tree of Savior Temporarily Blocks New Players To Sort Things Out


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Citing “serious internal debate,” Tree of Savior developer IMC Games revealed that they have requested that Valve temporarily shut off the ability to access the game. The decision comes in response to server stability, lag, and major issues regarding gold farming and in-game chat spam.

These restrictions will be put in place as soon as they are implemented by Valve and will be lifted as soon as the issues have been resolved. There will be another announcement as soon as the restrictions are implemented.

Tree of Savior previously had issues with fraud regarding Steam refunds, where certain malicious people were purchasing founder packs and then refunding them via the Steam store to keep the items.

(Source: Tree of Savior)

Chronicle: RuneScape Legends Launches May 26th


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(Correction: The free card packs run until May 15th)

Jagex Ltd, makers of the popular MMO RuneScape, have announced that their collectible card game RS Chronicles will launch on Steam on May 26th. In order to celebrate the occasion, anyone who logs in between now and May 15th will receive three free booster packs to bolster their decks.

RS Chronicles is one of the latest additions to the battle card game genre, following the massive success of Hearthstone. The title sets itself apart from the competition in that cards are used to build adventures for the player’s hero, building up their abilities or tearing down their opponent in preparation for the final battle at the end of each match.

“It’s just two weeks until we officially throw open the doors to Chronicle’s Hall of Legends on 26th May, and its launch on Steam is only the beginning for what we have planned. We’ve already introduced brand new cards every week, increased rewards, balancing improvements, and there’s even more content planned for the months to come,” said James Sweatman, lead designer, Chronicle: RuneScape Legends.

Chronicle: RuneScape Legends is currently free to play with microtransactions. Chronicle: RuneScape Legends will launch on Steam in seven languages: English, French, LATAM Spanish, German, Polish, Russian, and Brazilian-Portuguese.

(Source: Jagex press release)

Fantasy Tales Online Available On Steam


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Indie MMO Fantasy Tales Online is available in Early Access on Steam, if you missed its release last week. Developed by Cold Tea Studio, FTO is a retro-inspired MMO with accessible controls and a small community. I managed to take a look at the game and found it to be an immensely enjoyable experience, albeit one that is clearly early on in development.

Also available at launch is the Frontier Pack. For $20, the Frontier pack provides 1 month of subscription, bags, crate keys, costume tokens, respec tokens, and cash shop gems. The server on Steam is separate from the one on the official website.

Otherwise Fantasy Tales Online is free to play. Check it out on Steam at the link below.

(Source: Steam)

VAC Bans Will Extend To Accounts Linked By Phone Number


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(Editor’s Note: The article incorrectly stated incorrectly that the ban on associated accounts lasted three months. The ban on the phone number itself lasts three months, the ban on accounts is permanent. Thank you to Matt in the comments for correcting our mistake.)

Imagine a world where cheaters use burner phones to mask the identities of their individual Steam accounts, not unlike drug dealers, because just such a scenario could become more prevalent with a recent policy change at Valve.

Presently, if you are caught cheating in a VAC-protected game you are banned from VAC-enabled servers on that game. But what is stopping a person from buying Counter Strike: Global Offensive when it goes on sale for fifty cents (or whatever low price it hits during seasonal sales) and stocking up on 10+ accounts? Or Team Fortress 2 which is free to play? Nothing, and it is a noticeable problem in both titles.

Valve is taking on the issue two-fold: The first is to institute a matchmaking system for Counter Strike: GO that only links players whose accounts have phone numbers attached for two-factor authentication. The second is to ban any Steam account associated with that phone number if one of the accounts cheats. The bans on associated phone numbers lasts for three months, during which the number cannot be applied to any other account.

The benefit is that it is effectively impossible to buy a new phone only to find out too late that the guy who held the number before you was VAC-banned and still on probation.

(Source: Engadget)

Line of Defense Leaving Steam


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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)

Early Access Fraudsters: Asteroids: Outpost


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Generally you’d expect an Early Access Fraudster article to be about an indie developer, but the subject of today’s piece is none of than Atari itself, developed by the applicably named Salty Games, and it goes by the name Asteroids: Outpost. Asteroids is a modern day spinoff of the classic arcade title, a combination of Minecraft and DayZ that challenged players with setting up a base and defending it both from falling asteroids and the attacks of other players. It sounded like a great idea on paper, in practice it wasn’t so great.

Its continued sale is also outright fraud.

If you go on the Steam store page, the game currently holds a mostly negative rating with the top reviews imploring anyone who reads it not to throw down the $29.99 suggested retail price and to avoid the game and company at all costs. Despite the game still being available for purchase, according to Steam reviews the servers haven’t been in operation going back as far as November if not further, and there has been no contact or discussion from the Salty Games team. The official website is dead, all of the social media accounts are empty, and the game is completely unplayable.

In short: The project’s been abandoned, and either no one has bothered to tell Valve, or they just aren’t listening.

Judging by the forums, and the number of people who claim to have flagged the title over the months with no response, the latter seems more likely. Games suddenly shutting down without any notice from the developers isn’t new, as I said before, but this is something you’d expect out of an independent developer and not someone with the backing of a name like Atari. Granted, the Atari that exists today is a shell of the former corporation, one that mostly exists to license its properties out to the few companies that will buy them, but that is neither here nor there.

I tried contacting Salty Games before this article went up, the website is down and unfortunately I can’t find a single way to get in touch with the developers. The Asteroids: Outpost Steam account hasn’t been logged into in over two hundred days, and the group’s Facebook account hasn’t been posted on since last April. Salty Games doesn’t have a company website and Atari still acts like the game is still on sale on their own. If the studio has shut down, it hasn’t been announced and Google is turning up no results.

In addition, I contacted Atari’s press people to try and figure out what was going on and what happened to Salty Games. They haven’t responded. We also contacted Valve who, similarly, did not respond.

At the very least, we can sleep easy knowing that no one seems to actually be buying the game. After all, virtually no one bought it when the servers were live. According to Steam Charts, Asteroids peaked at 42 back in 2015 and hasn’t gone above 2 since. Judging by that success, it seems possible that Salty Games was shut down so fast that no one had time to shut down the Steam store page.

Regardless of their refund policy, Valve still has an obligation to remove this item from the store. It is, in all definitions of the words, abandoned and forgotten by a developer that may not even exist anymore. It died in early access yet continues selling tickets to a show that will never be performed.