Originally posted by IFIYGD:

The dev can have all of their buddies and sockpuppet accounts post nasty comments, while the reviewer can do nothing, wile the review is flagged. And devs/publishers know this.

^^^

Originally posted by Hill's Angel:

Steam should follow other e-commerce sites, wherein the seller/Dev has no say or power over reviews and/or comments. Allowing Devs to censor everything just invites abuse. You think this would already be instated, given how lazy and slovenly Valve runs things.

Agreed 100%

Fyi, my review was "flagged as abusive" and I'm not allowed to make edits.

We will see if it gets removed. Seem to be having a discussion with a Steam Moderator on my behavior there. I pointed him/her here if they care to investigate further into things and previous accusations/reports about Andrew The Dev. No one has attempted to speak with me except a Steam Moderator and a few unnamed concerned Steam gamers...

I'm basically (I hope) done with this. I honestly don't have time to deal with any more of it.

I've done my civic duty to warn people of the devs behavior. Though I may not be being "nice" about it, I am being constructive... towards the community.

My summer projects have started full swing and I can't be spending hours compiling information about a dev with a known (not to me until today) history. I have no incentive to do this time-consuming work anyways.

Thank you all for your help and I hope some of this helps someone else in the future.
That is my base goal, awareness (and apparently doing some of Steam's job for today).

Originally posted by Ryuu:

There were 2 updates for Borderless Gaming today, so maybe it has changed now. I haven't had a need to use it today, so don't know. All i see is there's unobtrusive toolbar entry in the program's window(which doesn't bother me and i think is perfectly suitable for advertisment purposes) advertising that thing and no options regarding showing banners.

I agree it was a bad idea, but i wouldn't make such a huge fuss about it personally.

I updated it too and saw the menu addition, no problem there. He had it under "Help" yesterday.

He also posted an official reply, but that just reads as spins, especially since this is repeat behavior. Mistakes or not, he has done a dirty dead and I still haven't read an appropriate apology... just spin and attacking previous complainers.

Normally I wouldn't fuss about this either, but this is repeat behavior.
He should have learned from previous mistakes... .02

Thanks for telling us your experience IFIYGD.

I'll follow through with my "threats" and report the application to Steam again... as if they care. :P

Do you know where the installation directory is for the "added" adware? I'll go delete it. I'm not immediately seeing it in the steam install directory that has the utility content.

As for BG being a free utility... At the time of my purchase of the program, it was not "free". The statements of it being free and open source in the descriptions were not there back when I purchased the program. Also the "donation DLC" didn't exist either.

I like those statements and options, but unless the purchase price is "free" instead of $3.99, the program is not "free"... So, this being "ok" is really no, in my book for any preexisting customers. The popup was simply snuck into an update.

I don't mind developers promoting their products or self, this method simply was not the ethical way of doing it. This is an abuse of the paid customer base.


Tid bits of info are coming in... Here is more info if anyone wants to research this fellow.

I've talked to another individual who contacted me though steam and says some of the negative reviews and posts are now gone and was wondering if Andrew Sampson, the dev, was deleting negative comments. I don't know yet, but my negative posts and a few others are still there after 12 hours... time will tell...

Apparently, this Developer is co-developing the Rainway application.
From what I'm assuming he turned Borderless Gaming into "Adware" as a means to promote the Rainmaker Application.

This is just a poor decision. Also, the way it was implemented makes it overly invasive as the Rainmaker advertisement does not state what program (Borderless Gaming) launched it and then also launches the web browser when attempting to access the standard locations one would use to try to close the popup window. Shady/underhanded implementation/methods, in my book.

This is the Author's Steam page and you see at the top in the "more info" he states he is the co-developer of Rainway. He also has 1 vac ban and multiple gaming bans, which may say something about his character or just possibly "programming mistakes" with utilities that effect steam games. Don't know and not willing to make "absolute" assumptions. Regardless, it looks bad. https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/Andrewmd5

This is his self-promotional "portfolio" website: http://andrew.im/

I don't know, but I"m hoping this developer is simply young, professionally inexperienced and doesn't understand the term "adware".

He doesn't seem to have strong "adult" communication skills in the discussions, so far from what I've seen. I hope he sees the light, quickly makes changes and makes a public apology to his paid customers. This is fixable...

Ok.. I wrote a scathing message and mild threat to the Developer and just want to bring this to everyone's attention.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/388080/discussions/0/1696043263492196331/


Nutshelled:

The game utility Borderless Gaming had an update.

Now on startup of the program it "pops up" an advertisement for a game launcher (I think) called Rainway. Clicking on the pop up anywhere or to close it, launches your web browser.
There is a checkbox to disable future popupping...

This was added to the paid version of the Steam version of the software.
There is also no indication of where the pop up came from (Borderless Gaming)
First thing I did was search Google and I found zero results to this issue.

https://steamhost.cn/app/388080/Borderless_Gaming/

Read the forums for some other complaint posts.

The author has not made any announcements or replies yet.

Agreed. The Steam Client sucks on so many levels... :P

Royalgamer did a nice job with that script. I seem to use it daily. Recommended.

I did? Crap.

I'll go edit or change that. I had no idea the region lock option would lock people out.
I assumed it was an informational field only.

Thanks for the heads up.

Updated. Region lock removed, time extended 12 hours and new link in OP.
Sorry for the confusion folks.

This is just an appreciation GA for Sentinels of the Store members only.
Really like what the group does and stands for.

Runs until Sunday March 11th 6pm CST

REGION LOCKED: "Activates in the United States." WILL NOT activate in Japan.

Requires a Steamgifts.com account
No level requirements.

https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/uQFZe/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-game-of-the-year-edition

**@Admins: I hope this is in the right area and you don't mind the post.
It probably belongs in "Off Topic", but I figure it would be better seen by those interested here.