https://steamhost.cn/app/1796050/My_Fingers/

I'm not following much anymore but I've rarely seen something this blatant. The 125 reviews, all positive, are almost all with clearly randomly generated usernames, and the texts are just quotes extrapolated from somewhere. You can find "Elementary, my dear Watson" or "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" but a lot are in Latin, including famos quotes like "Dura lex sed lex" and "Alea iacta est".

Looking at the first reviews, a series of lazy one-liners, it feels like the developer got tired of making sockpuppets and decided to boost reviews with a bot which apparently decided to take reference from some Latin database.

I was about to fall into the trap that it was one of those little surprises that can still pop up in the Store even if all the asset flips, lazy adult games and scams increasingly drown them out but my experience here made me check. The only post in the game's forum is in fact of an user telling they've already reported the game for fraud.

https://steamhost.cn/app/1451200/_/

The game didn't look to be much in its original form released last December but according to reviews and discussions it at least had a partial English translation that allowed it to be playable for who doesn't know Chinese. However after a big update in early March, it has switched to Chinese only with no announcement. Non-Chinese players feel understandably scammed.

Island Sky RPG has been removed, maybe in this case the original author has showed up.

Just a single case of confirmed theft would be enough to kick Garnudo out IMO, but who knows what goes through the brains at Valve (mmmh... lots of talc?).

From an older gameplay video dating back to April 2017, I could identify stuff ripped from Metal Slug, either directly or retouched a bit: the helicopters, the bomb crates, the "Mission Complete", the "thank you" voice sample, the victory jingle at the end of the stage. Another video from a November beta showed different helicopters and better explosions, but in general the visual assets clash badly with each other and many parts look like they belong to other games or were retouched.

@Mutant if as that player reports they are ripped from old games like Contra and Ninja Warrors, then like hell they were bought!

Nothing personal and rather due to my age, but I die inside every time someone calls "Doom clones" those Wolf3D clones...

Anyway, most if not all of those seem to be running under this engine:
http://www.moddb.com/engines/raycasting-game-maker

Western FPS and German Fortress 3D have been previously mentioned in this group; the former uses a free asset pack so specific it may have been made with that engine in mind. Dunno about the rest but given that engine is very easy to use and limited, and their overall low quality, it may rather be a case of serial lazy development.

A game that does not deserve to be confused with them is Cthon. The only thing in common is being made with Game Maker and the simple floor structure. Beside that, it's made with much more effort.

I think he intends that Nuclear Throne was originally born as a Game Maker project before becoming what it is currently (made with Unity right?), and that someone's been usign the GM source code of the old NT project.

The Steamgifts tactic worked only once, with the DLCs for Viewpoints; it was quickly noticed and reported by users; the contributor value of all the giveaways of those was consequently zeroed by the admins. Anyone who attempted the same would be found out even quicker.

From what I've read a few weeks ago, they've started forbidding linking of uncensor patches from the Steam forums of the censored games. Nothing a little searching can't do but still a big touch of hypocrisy from Valve.

Badly written or not, shouldn't that be classified as X-rated dialogue? Does it get a free pass from Valve, contrarily to imagery?