Originally posted by D:

In the last 24 hours, all games published by MicroMacro Games and RealGamesInteractive have been subject to major review manipulation to quickly increase their ratings.

All reviews are the same length and very likely AI-generated. Each of the users has a private profile and all of them have published exactly 20 reviews. Clearly they are bots.

I have reported the following games:

https://steamhost.cn/app/2992200/Airport_Antiterror/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2992180/Apocalypse_Delivery_Service/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2995480/AsiaKingdom/

https://steamhost.cn/app/3028600/City_find_all/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2995530/Escape_from_Hornhead/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2995500/FantasyKingdom/

https://steamhost.cn/app/3030550/Farm_Chores/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2992230/Greedy_Goose/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2991730/Insert_Item_Apocalypse/

https://steamhost.cn/app/3028680/Medival_Hustle/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2995550/Office_Dreaming/

https://steamhost.cn/app/2991740/Z_Rush/

Phenomenal Find!

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

Great job catching this one. Didn't Zonitron get banned for review manipulation? Valve won't ban games just because they're asset flips or low quality.

Zonitron was banned for abusing developer tools according to Valve.

gabella is a dev (TSS Studio & Vyacheslav Shilikhin) who used to spam Construct 2 asset flips (like Happy Santa) until they got banned a few years ago. In fact based on how some of LTZinc game's look. It wouldn't be far-fetched to say that gabella is back posting games on the Steam store. And if its not them, it is likely a close friend. Just my theory.

A few examples of gabella's previous titles (one managed to evade the ban wave)
https://steamhost.cn/app/754040/Piggy_Poggy_Pog/
https://steamdb.info/app/746490/
https://steamdb.info/app/790660/

it seems that this has been noticed by others https://twitter.com/simoncarless/status/1463292997148110848

Originally posted by wind_candle:

https://steamhost.cn/bundle/20822/Small_Game_Bundle_2/

Devs listed in this bundle are probably sock puppet accounts, and their games all appear to have some form of review manipulation.

Suspicious accounts in no particular order:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561199144406635/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561199136469994/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198988514884/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198965971746/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198980056906/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198966057968/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561199152679228/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198996104764/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198982675212/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198965806281/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561199152419404/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561199136678304/recommended/

Note that all of them bought the game through Steam, yet have less games owned than reviewed.

Nice work!

Originally posted by Zarkow:

Amazing series of hot garbage that gets good reviews...
https://steamhost.cn/search/?publisher=LTZinc
https://steamhost.cn/search/?publisher=KazakovStudios

Yeah and one of the devs is circumventing a ban evasion too

We have been aware of the sus positive reviews but sometimes its hard to definitively prove

Originally posted by wind_candle:

A couple of quick observations:

Some suspicious accounts linked to the dev
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/nemofenix/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561199106246943/recommended/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198144485294/recommended/

The dev
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/alex4ndres/recommended/
also reviewed games from this dev
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198263349675/reviews/
who also reveiwed games from this dev
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/mayha/recommended/
who had their game removed for review manipulation
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/1389120/discussions/0/3105766250713980006/
and also re-released under a different developer name
https://steamhost.cn/app/1574930/

Also related removed game
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/1230760/discussions/0/4197887985803145928/
re-released
https://steamhost.cn/app/1577260/

Great work spotting these!

The dev needs to chill out

Originally posted by wolfqack:

Yeah those are definitely paid/fake reviews.
Recognised one of the reviewers immediately who is part of some group that all review the same games favourably. They are all Russian and use similar wording every time. I had a list of games with dodgy reviews all from the same people a while ago, it's a surprising amount really.

This is something we have been aware of for some time. Unfortunately proving it to Valve can be difficult. They took action by marking the reviews as off topic (they have done this for other cases as well) see

https://steamhost.cn/app/335700/I_am_Weapon_Revival/ for the same thing.

Originally posted by .A:

Originally posted by SirViolentDeath:

Valve are now banning these titles

only took them 2 years

unfortunately they didnt get all the titles