Honestly, probably a way to get more sales, since the individual game is so expensive, the massively discounted bundles sounds like a better option (so multiple games get a sale technically, right?).

I don't know the dev, their history or whatever though. Either way, it's stupid and honestly I think the only people who would buy (and ? enjoy??) it are either game collectors or achievement hunters. Game doesn't seem even worth $1 USD (just for the break everything games at least).

i mean, tbf, there are a lot of joke curations anyway. it's kinda like reviews themselves (some are bad, some are good, some are just troll/spam reviews).

i don't really look at most curators anyway, but, just like reviews, you gotta actually read through them and decide for yourself if they're words are worth the pixels they're typed with or if they're just garbage.

however, it is pretty obvious that the curator review bombs were all fake and actually looks like it may be the same person (or a group of people working with each other or whatever) as they were all really really similar to each other. and that practice is stupid. i do feel like curator reviews perhaps have less weight than regular reviews, though (but i generally only glance at the actual review ratings and the game itself). kudos for a dev being proactive in fake review bombs!

that being said, i wouldn't want curations being removed as i do look at a couple in specific just for a quick glance and can be pretty helpful to me.

Originally posted by Topf:

Just play it. Expierence the stuttering and that the game isn't worth 2000 user reviews. So many indie games which don't get 10 user reviews in years.

again, there are achievements and it's free, and from the looks of it on steamhunters, the game is extremely short to 100%. a lot of times, especially with the free games, you'll get more players if the game has achievements, and you can assume that there are a bulk of them that do reviews, too.

to add onto it being free, it also has achievements, so that typically brings more players too

Originally posted by =^..^=:

Valve has already been put on notice for
"Penalty Offenses Concerning Deceptive or Unfair Conduct around Endorsements and Testimonials" - this covers fake reviews.

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offenses-concerning-endorsements/list-recipients-endorsement-notice.pdf

Sample letter Valve should have received.
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offenses-concerning-endorsements/npo_endorsement_template_letter.pdf

IMO $43,792 per violation.1 seems a bit low. Show the FTC as many potential violations as you can.

Also those titles above using fake, invalid ESRB.org system ratings is marketing. advertising fraud too. Let the FTC know as I have.

From the looks of it, it looks like only one game has a "rating" and it's not ESRB. It says it's for "OFLC NZ" but I'm not sure if there's a site that actually lists those titles.

Looked at his other games, which do seem to have some authentic reviews, but there are what looks to be the same pattern of reviews, they all "played" the game with the same range of time (0.2 - 0.8 or whatever). They all have private profiles, no actual products in their account (when looking at it from the reviews page), all of their reviews are only for that dev's games. Some do use latin in their comments as well, LOL. So def see that giant influx of fake reviews for that game, probably as you said to boost up the positive reviews because that's their most expensive game.

Originally posted by >noderunner_:

Originally posted by Lacy:

Yup, I saw that. Was just double checking that the character IS actually that color in-game ^^ I just haven't really looked into the game, but I do know that some games have misleading screenshots anyway so I typically prefer to double check with players rather than the store front anywhos

Yep yep, it's a real screenshot. The more obvious explination would be that there's a bug with the game that causes the character to be miscolored rather than a concentrated effort to manipulate screenshots of the game. I think the character color is one of the least offensive aspects of that screenshot anyways, it's just a bizzare accusation.

Most of the screenshots on the community hub are taken by the developer, so check who they're by.

ah ok thanks for the clarification! the screenshot stuff was def the only real thing i saw from the dev that looked iffy (because of course there was no screenshots of his comments pre-edits). He's not in the wrong for his doubts, but having played games that have the oddest bugs (both visual and mechanics), he def should have attempted to see if he could recreate the graphic change before jumping to conclusions. Just seems like a dev that wants to fight tooth and nail with bug reports (of course I could be jumping to conclusions based on other dev reactions I've seen in the past).

Originally posted by >noderunner_:

Originally posted by Lacy:

also, can I ask about the photoshop issue that the dev was claiming you did? I have 0 idea on what the game is, so don't know how i should feel when reading that tidbit

https://i.imgur.com/X7lMMZN.png
The screenshot that he banned me over, he claims that the color of the character is wrong and that I photoshopped it to make the game look worse - which makes no sense. The game looks bad enough already.

Yup, I saw that. Was just double checking that the character IS actually that color in-game ^^ I just haven't really looked into the game, but I do know that some games have misleading screenshots anyway so I typically prefer to double check with players rather than the store front anywhos

Others made good points so I won't repeat what they said, but what I would say is that in the future, def take screenshots when you first see the replies, that way if they DO edit, you have the original comment (and of course be sure to screenshot edits as well). I know this doesn't help right now, but just something to think about in the future.

I will add on though, of course, that devs won't care if positive reviews are short and undescriptive (like "game is good") but with negative reviews, there are devs that do read the reviews to help them fix up the game, so its def better to be more descriptive not only for potential players but actually attentive devs ^^

also, can I ask about the photoshop issue that the dev was claiming you did? I have 0 idea on what the game is, so don't know how i should feel when reading that tidbit

Again, it's not something that's new. And this won't be the last game. The news never mentioned the game being free, only the previous DLC ( " This means that Squigly, Big Band, Eliza, Beowulf, and Robo-Fortune are now unlocked by default. All color palette DLC, and the 2nd Encore only features (voiced story mode, trials, challenges, etc) are also unlocked for all players. Enjoy! ").

The game going up in price also makes sense as, like you said, it's been around for a long time and they have put in a lot of work into their game. This also, is not the first time a game has raised the base price. Also, again, I see it as a way of the dev showing all the support that they have gotten by making old(er) DLC free, even if it already means that there are people who already had those particular DLCs.