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MixaMan 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:28pm

Bigger spammer than Zonitron

Hi again, I've been looking around after coming here and have some disturbing news. I think I've found an even bigger spammer than Zonitron and it looks like they might be using two or more names.

Big Fish Games and Artifex Mundi's hidden object games use almost identicle interfaces and are just inserted with a new art. Between the two lists of games they have put over 198 games on Steam in the past 20 months all of almost identicle hidden object games. A lot of these did not even have go through greenlight and Artifex Mundi does card bundles on Indie Gala and other sites. It looks like these publishers are taking advantage of Steam.

And this is just what I have found in a short time I'm sure there is more to this. I thought I saw another company also but can't remember the name.

Artifex Mundi 12 this year, 17 in 2016, 10 in 2015, 13 in 2014
62 in less than 4 years 30 of those in past 2 years

Big Fish brags about making a game a day on their website
https://steamhost.cn/search/?publisher=Big%20Fish%20Games
93 in 2017 already
Over 75 in 2016
185 total

Last edited by MixaMan; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:36pm

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Showing 1-15 of 29 comments

Chudah 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:30pm

Okay, just gonna chime in here and say that Big Fish is a publisher, not a developer. They've been slowly bringing over several games they've previously published on their own website to Steam, but definitely not all. Many are very high quality for the genre as well. And for the record, no...they're not all almost the exact same game with new art. There is a noticeable style that is utilized for this genre, but they're in no way made by the same artists or developers, and that includes the UIs. Artifex Mundi is also a publisher, but a much smaller one.

Last edited by Chudah; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:39pm

MixaMan 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:52pm

So you're saying they are all basically the same template with different art and levels?
The art styles are almost identical across both companies and they have interchanging launch dates you can see it when you look at some of the launch period. One launches on Artifex then one on Big fish. There's nothing slow about it when 20 of them are being launched or 30 if you count the other sock puppet. Regardless of quality level it is still 185 hidden object games by the same company that basically use the same template. Many of their games are series 10 to 12 long that could have been download content and they hide the duplicates of that series by not putting numbers after them and just using long names instead. Dark Parables 1, 2, 3, etc.

This seems even worse than anything we have seen to date from asset flippers.

Avantyr 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:57pm

Hahaha.
No, they aren't spammers as much as they make a lot of HOGs since they have it down.
You may not like them, but the games have some polish and are neither asset flips nor effortless cash grabs.
Having played a few, the games have unique stories and minigames.

Big fish is a publisher and you can google their platform to see what they have available there.

Last edited by Avantyr; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:58pm

Chudah 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:00pm

It's not by the same company, and they're not sock puppets. If you researched, you'd see they're from several different well-known HOG developers, many of which have their own websites.

http://blueteagames.com/
http://elephant-games.com/
https://www.madheadgames.com/
http://www.boomzap.com/

Last edited by Chudah; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:02pm

MixaMan 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:02pm

This is interesting to me.
Your steam gifts channel https://www.steamgifts.com/user/Chudah has you giving copies of Big Fish, Artifex Mundi, and the one I could not remember, Jet Dogs games away in quantities of 5 or more. Where are you getting these copies of their games? It seems like someone who has this kind of relationship to the developer would have a fairly biased opinion.

Cjcomplex 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:04pm

You are accusing Big Fish, the largest publisher/developer on the casual market, of making recycled trash. Fucking hell, do ya homework first before you make yourself look like an ass.

Mundi is also another huge publisher/dev on the casual market with a focus on mobile/pc games. If you don't like casual games, fine that is you being you, but at least google their fricken websites before pointing the finger.

Chudah 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:04pm

This is interesting to me.
Your steam gifts channel https://www.steamgifts.com/user/Chudah has you giving copies of Big Fish, Artifex Mundi, and the one I could not remember, Jet Dogs games away in quantities of 5 or more. Where are you getting these copies of their games? It seems like someone who has this kind of relationship to the developer would have a fairly biased opinion.

I buy several bundles to gift off games via my Steam groups. It's a way of supporting the community and the Steam groups I help run. Buying during Happy Hour at IndieGala often gets you several copies of the same bundles. Bundle Stars has also had several HOG bundles that are cheap enough to grab 4-5 copies of to gift away.

You can try to insunate that I've got some "in" with the developers/publishers, but I simply do not.

Last edited by Chudah; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:12pm

MixaMan 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:12pm

This is odd. What you guys are saying doesn't make sense. Our goal here is to find games that are spamming steam with regurgitation's of the same product over and over. Just because this is a large company doesn't change the fact that they are spamming. They use the same template over and over again which is like using a complete project and just changing the art work. This can be seen from them bragging about putting out a game a day so it is obviously not taking much effort to put them together.

Cjcomplex 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:16pm

Originally posted by MixaMan:
This is odd. What you guys are saying doesn't make sense. Our goal here is to find games that are spamming steam with regurgitation's of the same product over and over. Just because this is a large company doesn't change the fact that they are spamming. They use the same template over and over again which is like using a complete project and just changing the art work. This can be seen from them bragging about putting out a game a day so it is obviously not taking much effort to put them together.

They have similar gameplay but it is not the same thing as recycling the same game over and over. You might as well rant against Activision over the derivative nature of CoD while you are at it.

If you played any of the Mundi games (they are cheaper than Big Fish, so cheaper to acquire and try) you would notice that there is differences between the series even though they are all HoGs.

Again, do your homework first instead of 5 minutes of google work.

Last edited by Cjcomplex; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:18pm

Chudah 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:18pm

Originally posted by MixaMan:
This is odd. What you guys are saying doesn't make sense. Our goal here is to find games that are spamming steam with regurgitation's of the same product over and over. Just because this is a large company doesn't change the fact that they are spamming. They use the same template over and over again which is like using a complete project and just changing the art work. This can be seen from them bragging about putting out a game a day so it is obviously not taking much effort to put them together.

They are not the same product. If you managed to actually play any of them you'd understand there's a certain style that most of these games utilize, but they're not the exact same template used over and over with different artwork swapped out. There could be nothing further from the truth.

As for BFG bragging about a new game every day, that's just their sales pitch for their website. The new game every day includes Collector's & Standard Editions of these HOGs (they only bring the Collector's Edition to Steam when applicable) along with all the other casual games they release. So far, the only HOGs they've brought to Steam are those that are well reviewed from respected companies. There are a TON of garbage HOGs out there, but BFG has only been bringing over the better titles.

Last edited by Chudah; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 6:45pm

#10

Avantyr 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:19pm

Guess the lego games are spamming as well, since they usually have the same mechanics and a different skin...

#11

Mellow_Online1

6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:20pm

Hi Mixaman

As @Chudah has stated, bigfish games is a publisher that has ported a great number of their games they have on their own service over to Steam and have been doing it for a while now.

Reviewing the collection of bigfish games posted, they predominately put out HOG but releasing a game within the same genre of each other isn't really spamming the Steam store with low effort asset flip trash that the likes of Zonitron/Silicon Echo used.

Hope this cleared some things up.

Also, just pointing out, just because someone has done giveaways of the games on steamgifts doesn't mean they have a personal connection to the developer/publisher.

Last edited by Mellow_Online1; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:27pm

#12

MixaMan 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:34pm

https://steamhost.cn/cdn_akamai_steamstatic_com/steam/apps/286500/ss_0127787a16b97ce4b561f105ef76c1d3efff5449.1920x1080.jpg?t=1447360807

https://steamhost.cn/cdn_akamai_steamstatic_com/steam/apps/406870/ss_2e3221f8687fd6c6b852d426224d68f2db6c65e7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1501154846

After comparing these two above it's obvious there is a connection between the templates. It also turns out Vivia Media also has similar HOG's but also has quite a few reskin such as the following

https://steamhost.cn/app/344800/World_of_Mixed_Martial_Arts_3/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

#13

Mellow_Online1

6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:35pm

@MixaMan

Just out of curiosity, have you played any HOGs before?

Last edited by Mellow_Online1; 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:35pm

#14

MixaMan 6 Oct, 2017 @ 5:44pm

I've watched plenty of Youtube videos to see the similar game play to be able to tell there is not much difference between the games.

I just don't understand why there needs to be 185 of them when I'm having a hard time finding great new indie games.

#15

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Date Posted: 6 Oct, 2017 @ 4:28pm

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