Reviews manipulation:

https://steamhost.cn/app/1916280/Swords_Fantasy_Battlefield/

Originally posted by Denilson Sá:

There is a certain curator that had a pretty good idea: it uses the steam reviews to compile a list of top 250 new-ish games. (Plus some extra logic to help find "hidden gems", as opposed to extremely popular games that everyone talks about.)

https://steamhost.cn/curator/32686107-%D0%85t%D0%B5%D0%B0%D0%BC-250/

The idea is nice, but it seems "developers" can abuse that. Look at some of the most recent games added to that curator:

https://steamhost.cn/app/3067060/Alcoholic_Daddy/
https://steamhost.cn/app/3066920/Nuke_Bomberman/
https://steamhost.cn/app/3067380/Boom_and_Rum/
https://steamhost.cn/app/3067010/Bottle_Collector_Run/
https://steamhost.cn/app/3067040/Goldy_Pig_Adventure/
https://steamhost.cn/app/3066970/Taxi_Goldmania/

They all look like low-effort, likely asset flips. They all priced at €0.99, they all published on the same date, each publisher/developer only has about 4 or 5 games… I watched one of the trailers (for the last game listed above) and the trailer runs at less than 10fps, and it's a driving game.

Then we look at the reviews, and they are all positive and they all sound similar enough. Possibly some AI-generated script. And what the reviews describe don't even match the trailer (e.g. talking about speed and a lively city on the aforementioned game).

I did not look at all those games, I did not read all the reviews. But these (and many others) just smell like shovelware asset-flip stuff with no real value to the consumer.

And this is yet another reason why Steam should allow us to ignore more than 100 creators.

And they all got 80 reviews? Looks legit.

/s

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

Originally posted by Madnesis:

Asset flip:

The standard Unity 3D Game Kit. The gall of some of these asset flippers!

True classic!

Asset flip: https://steamhost.cn/app/2984130/Odyssey_of_the_Explorer/

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

Came across this $200 train wreck:

https://steamhost.cn/app/833300/Fantasyland/

I can't see any connection to the usual suspects, but if it looks like a duck, and it smells like a duck... Any ideas?

Looks at that bundle, totally (not) worth the price! https://steamhost.cn/bundle/5912/Apillo_Games/

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

Originally posted by Eviction Notice:

The "devs" that do the 1:1 asset flip usually end up getting caught doing something that does get them removed because ultimately they have little interest in making games, which is kind of the whole point of distributing on Steam.

Yeah, like ImperiumGame/Reforged Group/For Kids/whatever got away with hundreds of nasty asset flips for years, it wasn't until they pulled the "Fake Palworld" scam that Valve finally took action against them.

I mean, it's not random that Cristian Manolachi has his hundreds of asset flips under shell accounts that are priced at like $50 each everywhere except for Russian pricing (where these games are just a few cents). These asset flippers are shady as hell, but until they do something overtly offensive to Valve, Valve will keep letting them launder money and everything else they do.

Yes, this is really a trend we have seen over and over. Basically, it's ok for "devs" to do shady stuff on Steam, up until the point they fake popular games or even Valve games market items.

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

The problem is that you can't really report them, there's nothing in Valves T&Cs that says asset flips aren't permitted on the store. Otherwise asset flippers like Cristian Manolachi would have been banned years ago.

If the asset that is being flipped is from the Unity Asset Store, there's a condition of use from Unity that the asset must not make up a substantial part of the game (1:1 asset flips definitely make up a substantial part of the game), but those are Unity terms and conditions, and Valve isn't obliged to enforce them.

And Unity won't step in either because they make a lot of money from asset flips and don't want to discourage amateur devs from buying their assets.

Also Cristian doesn't use assets from the Unity Asset store... our theory is he's gotten his hands on a huge number of assets, possibly from compromising the CDN for a store like SellMyApp, which has hundreds of assets. Most of the assets he makes his asset flips from are also up for sale on SellMyApp.

As a community all we can do is review, curate, and warn other gamers about these fake games. Reporting them achieves nothing, unfortunately.

Got it. Not much we can do, basically, other than letting others know. Thanks!

May I ask you guys, what do you guys put in the reports for all this shovelware/asset flips/placeholder games trash? If this has been covered elsewhere, I would appreciate a link. Thanks.

Potential reviews manipulation. Accounts have very reviews and most seem to be from Romania: https://steamhost.cn/app/2300110/Nightzoid/

https://steamhost.cn/bundle/36923/Winter_Black_Friday/

Lot of assets flip games with manipulated reviews and outrageous prices.

Direct hyperlinks to the "publishers":
https://steamhost.cn/search/?publisher=+Kvass+Da+Valenki
https://steamhost.cn/curator/40621528
https://steamhost.cn/search/?publisher=Phoenixxx+Games+
https://steamhost.cn/curator/43713663