Originally posted by Ratchet:

Looks like they've since all been taken down?
https://i.imgur.com/bBoRtkp.png

They are still working for me (Italy here)

I was browsing the store today and noticed this game:

https://steamhost.cn/app/461400/Massive/

Is the exact same as this game:

https://steamhost.cn/app/514410/Gun_Brothers/

And very possibly ALSO this game:

https://steamhost.cn/app/667170/Undead_Souls/

And i mean the exact same or 90% similar, maybe very small changes. Assets, UI, graphics - even the SAME DEVELOPER. Check the store pages above.

Also, on a side not it's clearly a ripoff of Nuclear Throne. But that's not the main problem.

This is some new level of trash.

Originally posted by Lacy:

just a heads up about the achievements, some games' achievements only unlock upon closure and people may not know that and so that they'll have the same time stamps. Some games work when offline well (not all games' achievements but some do), so same time stamps could also be from that too.

I also agree with Hibachi on the play time as well. I've seen reviewers that spent very little time in the game and hated it (or the concept of the game) instantly. I wouldn't call them fake reviews. They definitely either should have read the game's description better or given the game an actual shot before reviewing it, but it doesn't mean their review was fake.

Yeah some games do that but very few. I suggest checking multiple games of a specific person to see if that person scripts achievements. In my experience i had maybe 2-3 games in all my time that had unlocks on exit - but it can happen, that's right.

Reviews made with like 1-2 hours of playtime when the game for example lasts 30 hours, or has deep mechanics with a high learning curve... are garbage. How can anyone even give an informed opinion by having seen not even 5% of what the game has to offer, in terms of mechanics, content, and so on? Well, you can't. So if you don't want to call them fake, call them trash.

I've been part of the Steam reviewing community as a writer for many years now, and currently manage one of the largest, most active curators around. And one of the LAST honest ones i might add.

Without making names, i'll have you know there are many people out there that use the curator system to get a literal truckload of free games, promising reviews in return. Some of them are honest of course, but many more are not and make fraudulent reviews, without even playing the game in some cases!

I'll tell you some tips to spot such scum and avoid them in the future. A practical guide to see if a review is legit or not. Because i absolutely loathe these people, and want to make you aware they exist.

1. Check the reviewer's achievements
Achievements, for those games that have them, are the best indicator to know if someone really played the game or not. Go on the Reviewer's profile and check the game list, then statistics, achievements section. There are two things you need to pay attention to.

The first and most simple, is when the reviewer played an extensive number of hours and has zero achievements. This means with 99% probability, he did not really play the game. It could also be (less probable) that the achievements were added in a later update though, you should check the recent Game News in the Game Hub to see if this is the case. If you see this in multiple reviews of the same person, then there is very little doubt.

But there is more. Some people even use scripts to unlock achievements in an unintended way, to make it look like they played the game... when they did not. To see if it's the case, look at the unlock time of the achievements: if many achievements have been unlocked at the exact same time, down to the minute, it much probably means a script was used to obtain them unfairly.

2. Check the total playtime
Steam indicates how much time a Reviewer spent playing the game before making a review. If you see a review done only after a couple hours, then unless the game is extremely short which can happen, it would mean this person did not play it long enough to give a valid opinion. Use the website "How Long To Beat" if you want to know how long a game takes to finish - then compare it with the review, you will soon know if the reviewer played it enough or not.

Now onto curators, which are another important part of the review community around Steam. There are some red flags to consider when looking at a curator, which can tell you if they really play and review games properly, or not.

1. Absence of negative reviews
Look at the curator page. If you see there are hundreds of reviews (or even thousands in some cases) and none of them - not even ONE - is negative, then with good probability it means this curator writes a positive review no matter what - in exchange for a free review copy of course. The logic is simple: if you review a thousand games, there have to be some bad ones in them, even if you take the best care in selecting them beforehand.

2. No link to a full review in the curations
Curations and reviews are two separate things. A curation is simply a post inside a Curator's review feed, which then should link to a full review on the reviewer's profile, or in some cases on an external website. You can see in the curator's review list a small writing that says "Read the full review here", clicking it will open the "real" review.

If a curator has no links to complete reviews, or very few, then it is a red flag to consider, because any serious reviewer does write a full review, curators that don't do so often are used only for promotion/advertisement in exchange of free keys - which is NOT the right way to do things, but only an abuse of the system.

3. The curator's info description
Always look the about section and the homepage of a curator. If anywhere you see something along the lines of: "For promotion requests contact this address" or "advertisement requests" and so on, that means it's just a curator that spits out positive reviews for free keys, no matter how the game might be bad. A lot of curators do this, more than you think.

That would be all, i hope this helped you in dividing real reviews made by dedicated community members, from fake ones made by clowns.

Originally posted by mm.324:

Originally posted by Tamaster:

I'm VERY worried steam allows this. Imagine the kind of abuse that could be done.

I can see a situation where a game is getting bad reviews so the dev reverts it into EA so they can say that it's still a "work in progress". Then they walk away from it, leaving the buyer with a garbage game.

Definitely.

Originally posted by Mellow_Online1:

Originally posted by Tamaster:

Yeah i have this same line of thought. But up to the admins, i just reported the fact.

We're for the topic continuing to be discussed here, it's not like if we don't agree with something it'll just get removed or shut down.

I think it's great to keep talking about this kind of practice as it is a very unique case! :)

I'm VERY worried steam allows this. Imagine the kind of abuse that could be done.

Originally posted by mm.324:

Originally posted by Ratchet:

To be fair, if a game is released and then put into early access you don't get less of a game. In the end you get the game + more content on top of that.

I get what you're saying but look at it like this....You buy a car, believing it's a complete car, then find out that there is no transmission/gearbox. You're not allowed to get your money back and you just have the seller's word that eventually they'll install one, and God only how long that'll take. I'd be mad enough to spit acid.

It looks as though the dev is going to try to complete the game but I think letting a "full release" revert to an Early Access is setting a dangerous precedent. I can see unscrupulous devs abusing this.

Yeah i have this same line of thought. But up to the admins, i just reported the fact.

Originally posted by Ratchet:

To be fair, if a game is released and then put into early access you don't get less of a game. In the end you get the game + more content on top of that.

Well fair enough i guess this is a very subjective perception of this fact. You see the positive side of it, i saw mostly the negative.

Alright thanks for the reply.

Originally posted by Ratchet:

I don't understand how you see this as a bad move?
If a developer thinks their game is not ready for release based on user feedback after releasing then they should be able to admit their fault and put the game into early access. Its benefiting users and in the end will be a better game.

Because if you release a game and you say it's finished, people buy it thinking it's just what says on the tin: a complete game.

If you release it as early access from day one that's totally fine. But changing from "not early access" to "early access" several days later - when before they even said the game would fully release on that day - is a scummy move in my eyes.

People bought it in the first couple days and then found themselves with an unfinished product in their hands, when it was sold and marketed as a finished game all the time before this moment.

That's at least deceptive - at least for me. But i just reported it then of course admins will see if this fits into the group or not. No worries.

This happened at the end of May but i found this group just today so i'll be posting now I guess.

Basically what this developer did was releasing the game as FULL on Steam, then they realized the game was a bugged, broken maess so changed it to Early Access several days later.

Of course, people who thought the game was finished and played > 2 hours could not refund anymore.

I made a thread about this in the game's community hub with all the proof, check it out:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/896440/discussions/0/2273701484000168089/

For me this is disgusting and is the first time i ever saw this done in any game. I hope this was helpful for the group.