Originally posted by Ryuu:

(...) or ability to caregorize/filter your library by tags/features (..)

Even though this isn't a Valve feature... do you know Steam Depressurizer? If not, I recommend it! :) Makes organizing your library MUCH easier ;)

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD:

(...) still fail at most basic stuff - quality control and not allowing garbage to over satured the market. I am very sure Valve will start doing something about this or hire a team of people to test control thrash and asset flippers (...)

I think they don't even have to go as far as hiring several people to gatekeep the store and stop trash from getting on it. If they simply hired a couple of people to check the stuff that gets reported and that could actually take action, like removing games and banning developers, it would already make the store 10000% better...

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD:

Second, I think its good that "one strike, you are out" should be a thing on Steam.

To be honest, I think this this specific case is one of the lighter offences a dev can make - I really believe he was inadvertently breaking the rules, since he wasn't having other typical shady behaviors. I was pretty surprised with how fast Valve removed the game, considering how they usually deal with people like birdiev and zonitron studios.... In this case I'm kinda glad they gave him another chance. I would LOVE if they had that "one strike, you are out" attitude towards really bad offenders, like those two I've mentioned and other publishers that pump out an avalanche of trashy asset flip games...

(Not trying to be too cynic here, but the reason for the different treatment is probably that while the usual asset flippers / shovelware publishers MAKE Valve money, this dev was actually making them LOSE some...)

Thanks guys! Glad I can contribute
Even though I'm used to seeing bad devs and asset flips, I was still a bit shocked to see SO MANY games per publisher - even the ones that weren't directly connected do DT are still publishing dozens of games in an incredibly short amount of time .__. I wonder how SVD manages to keep track of everything

I have done some research which makes me believe we have another super prolific publisher / dev here, similar to Zonitron, that uses SEVERAL different accounts to pump games out. Not all of them use the same e-mail address, but some either have the same e-mail / contact info, or the e-mail they use has the name of yet another publisher. It's a bit complicated, but let me see if I can sum it up:

- I noticed a couple of games had similar covers and names
- Posted about it on SOS and confirmed they were from the same person
- Found a couple more games from the same guy and noticed all of them had been on bundles from "Go Go Bundle", "Otaku Bundle" and "Bunch of Keys"
- Went to those websites to check their bundles and see if I'd find more games with similar covers or names
- Found several, but they weren't all from the same publisher or developer
- Checked the e-mails of several "different" publishers and found that a couple of them shared the same e-mail address
- Started checking all the games from all those publishers and noticed several similarities between them
- Also noticed that many publishers had a lot of developers in common
- Started checking all the games from all the recurring developers
- Found that they had launched some games using other publishers that weren't on my previous list
- Again, checked the publisher’s e-mails and found some were the same
*rinse and repeat*

The most important thing I found out is that - without a shadow of a doubt - there are at least 6 "different" publishers that all use the same e-mail and same support website[www.dagestantechnology.ru], and have published together around 120 games! And that's not even counting the dozens of games that I couldn't get proof that are from the same people. From what I can tell, most of them are either asset flips, and even re-use assets from one another.

Other suspicious publishers may or may not be connected to those 6, but either way they are worth a look, since many of them also pumps out tons of asset flips... (Oh, btw, most, if not all of them are Russian...)

I've also found a couple of sites related to the publishers, which helped me make more connections. (I’ve listed them on the spreadsheet).

I plan on doing some more digging later, but I've gone so far down the dirty devs' rabbit hole that I'm actually kinda tired... I’ve put together a spreadsheet with the info I managed to get, trying to make as much sense as possible. I hope that can help you guys. Please let me know if you find something new (or if you already knew all of this. lol).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13XIcIy8Tnn-a6Hl_SIFQWiytSB58oWq9332CIVy3Wzg/edit?usp=sharing

PS: I know you had "Dagestan Technology" on your radar - I'm just not sure if you'r aware that they are still this active, and that they also use the names "Blue Whale Games" and "LEVER Software".

Same guy, new games:

https://steamhost.cn/app/818290/
https://steamhost.cn/app/757720/

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD|off until 25th:

LOL litteraly one of first threads on hub of this garbage was about how so called "developer" stole a 100% same model of a character from popular anime and used it as a protagonist for his game.

Thread:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/368710/discussions/0/1693785669869176407/

Picture of said "protagonist":
https://imgur.com/a/3KnBp

Page from wiki of said anime:
https://wiki.puella-magi.net/Mami_Tomoe

LOL! I checked that thread and some people were questioning whether that character was actually in the game and if it was really based on the said anime character... I think the "official" wallpaper for the game answers that...

"The Daughter" wallpaper:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/market/listings/753/368710-%22the_daughter%22

"Mami Tomoe" (anime character):
https://imgur.com/asY6r8V

PS: Erm... Is it just me, or did he also rip off another anime character here? (I'm pretty sure I've seen this character before....)

"The son" wallpaper:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/market/listings/753/368710-%3Athe_son%3A

Originally posted by Hibachi:

... how did you unearthed that thing in the first place?!

Completely by accident - I saw a giveaway for the game's DLCs on Steam Gifts and went to check it on Steam to see if they interested me. "

Originally posted by Mellow_Online1:

Thanks for the heads up.

Glad to help ^_^

Originally posted by Mellow_Online1:

That's one of the main things I'm thinking regarding this. Yes, you are allowed to distribute your games elsewhere, but in this instance, the developer is directly telling his customers to avoid buying it on Steam if they want a large discount and also directly in the Steam description.

Yeah, I think the problem is not selling your game elsewhere, but advertising it on the Steam store - specially if the price difference is significant (total on Steam = $7.96, total directly with dev = $0.33...)

I'm not sure if the dev has bad intentions though... Leaving aside the fact that his games are pretty bad and that he considers walkthroughs as acceptable DLC, he doesn't seem to be doing other shady things...

Originally posted by SirViolentDeath:

the emails are the same, so yeah its the same dev

Thx for the confirmation :)

This is easier to check after you get all the facts - like all the games' names. But is there a way to not have to "reverse-engineer" it? Like, is it possible to search by an e-mail to see all the accounts associated with it?

In this case for example, I only remembered 2 of the games' names... was there a way to search by the e-mail or other dev info so I could have found the names of the other games?