Like so many other despicable companies, Pearl Abyss withheld the fact the game has Denuvo 1 week before release:

https://steamhost.cn/app/3321460/Crimson_Desert/

This is being done intentionally due to the Denuvo-employee admitted fact that anyone who uses their service has their reputation and public goodwill get destroyed.

As usual, stay informed.[denuvotruth.blogspot.com]

In their eternal wisdom, Valve has decided to completely and utterly demolish Community Awards in response to an easily solvable problem.

Recipients of community awards will now get 0 points.

All the old icons are now completely gone and replaced with 12 soulless blobs of shìt.

Old rewards are now 100% collapsed and hidden by default.

Award profile showcases? All the old ones are 100% gone.

The new icons all cost the same, making them even more bland and meaningless.

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This has completely decimated many people's drive to do things like create mods, write good game reviews or otherwise submit solid community content.

Well done, Valve.

UPDATE:

They issued a statement after many rightfully went ballistic over this unannounced googlification of Steam, saying that they "were surprised" over their own code & implementation..

Translation: They didn't bother opening wireshark or resource monitor for 20 seconds to see that their code changes now includes massive amounts of data is being beamed to google servers and that only some of it might be removed:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/3/688615792191756981/#c688615792191838583

Data from pretty much all Steam users has already been sent and is continuing to be sent so this is a poor attempt at damage control and admittance of continued rampant incompetence inside Valve.

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Acting again in complete contradiction to their own statements, Valve has recently released an update that shifts pretty much all their back-end infrastructure from being "Avoid Google" to now "Fully Google":

Specifics & Technical Breakdown Here.

For those that don't know, Valve has been historically Anti-Google & Anti-Microsoft in pretty much every way. It's their #1 driving factor behind SteamOS and there is to this day direct statements from them saying:

"Google's tracking solutions don't align well with our approach to customer privacy"

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/google_analytics

https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-i-think-windows-8-is-a-catastrophe-for-everyone-in-the-pc-space/

No more, apparently. And of course, this was all done with no announcement from them, 0% transparency as per usual. This also means that SteamOS (Linux based gaming) is now intrinsically connected to Google whenever you use Steam.

Steam has released yet another disastrously bad change targeting user review scores.

I'll debunk their gaslighting attempts as to why they are doing this and provide full context.

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As of writing this, User Reviews on Steam are currently ONLY counted towards the total score if:

1. They are strictly in a specific language. (New)

2. They DIRECTLY purchased it on Steam, ONLY. Every other method is discluded, including direct Steam gifts[files.catbox.moe] and events such as free weekends.

3. They don't point out anything we dislike or have a controversial thought. {2}.[files.catbox.moe]

4. They aren't considered "off-topic" (vague undefined garbage, basically Steam's UK Safety Act).
{1}.[files.catbox.moe] {2}.[files.catbox.moe] {3}.[files.catbox.moe]

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This is on top of them introducing the "Helpfulness System" (twice now) that does nothing but hide negative reviews: {1}.[files.catbox.moe] {2}.[files.catbox.moe]

And adding extra steps to people that want to write negative reviews.[files.catbox.moe]

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It's yet another case of them creating additional extreme pro-company safety nets, trying to defend braindead developers from valid consumer backlash in the form of negative reviews that they rightfully receive in response to doing extremely stupid shìt.[www.dualshockers.com]

Lets look at some of their statements:

Valve: This is part of our ongoing effort to ensure that Steam User Reviews are helping customers make informed decisions when considering the purchase of a new game.

You are actively giving everyone 90%+ less data (in this case, User Review Scores from every other language), making it infinitely more volatile and terrible. Using their example: 2000 global reviews, but i only get to see 200 "in my language?" This is the OPPOSITE of helping people make an informed decision.

Valve: Calculating a language-specific review score means that we can better distill the sentiment of these different groups of customers, and in doing so, better serve potential customers that belong to those groups.

We ALREADY HAVE a language sorting function for reviews. People who cared to see the opinions in X/Y language can already do so. Stop this absolute dogshìt gaslighting facade.

Valve: We want User Reviews to be useful to customers from the very start, without them having to twiddle with the many knobs the system has--this is the primary reason why the new language-specific review score system is turned on by default.

You want them to be streamlined... So you add more "knobs" for people to swim through in order to get an actual accurate review score? What the f*ck are these constant self-contradictions and who is letting this monkey write Steam News announcements?

The Steam Store Preference Page now literally looks like an US tax form.

Does Gabe know about this? Probably not. He's buying and making Yachts.[www.theverge.com]

Stay Informed.[valvetruth.blogspot.com]

As would be expected following colossal public backlash, they have begun lying through their teeth to try and save face:

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mastercard-deflects-blame-for-nsfw-games-being-taken-down-but-valve-says-payment-processors-specifically-cited-a-mastercard-rule-about-damaging-the-brand/

This is NOT just about porn but a long on-going effort from a group of extremely malicious actors trying to imprint their agendas and ideas while systematically censorshipping the entire internet.

Here's a timeline:

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1990: Internet begins to see widespread use.

1996: The Communications Decency Act (CDA). Also known as the US' version of the U.K Online Safety Act got proposed. Thankfully, it got axed because some judges with common sense pointed out how moronically vague it was. (foreshadowing)

1996: Telecommunications Act. Laws and liberty applied to the internet.

1997: China's great firewall goes up, blocking billions of people from accessing an unsullied internet.

2000-2011: More or less every major corporation in the world decides to go along with China's human rights violating doctrines & firewall, completely normalizing large-scale censorship.. Because of money.

2013: Edward Snowden blows the whistle that the US government is colluding with pretty much every country and major organization in the world (including the UK) to spy on absolutely everyone they can, illegally. Instead of being hailed as a hero, the US government do everything they can to demonize him while largely continuing to spy on people illegally.

2014: UK's Audiovisual Media Services Regulations decides to ban the female orgasm (and 20+ different other nonsensical things) probably to see if they could. Yes, this is real. It only partially got tweaked in 2019 with caveats.

2015-2016: China cracks down even harder on online content, writing into law that having a controversial thought is illegal and makes real life identification mandatory. Rest of the developed world continues to be inspired by this.

2017: The UK tries it's first attempt to introduce their version of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), called the "Digital Economy Act". Thankfully it fails, probably because it wasn't labeled as "protect deh childrun". (foreshadowing)

2018-2020: "Woke'ism" begins to pick up in force, now being backed up by pretty much every major organization on earth, silencing, shaming and banning anyone with a controversial thought or for not being politically correct. Shadow banning in particular (banning someone without having to give a reason or notice) becomes the norm on all social media platforms, especially Twitter and Youtube.

2018: The U.S. FOSTA‑SESTA Act gets passed. As a result, Paypal had a complete meltdown and begun mass-banning anything remotely adult related, including pr0nhub, all while being deliberately vague, giving little to no warnings and being as non-transparent as possible.

2019: Covid happened and every single digital censorship architecture system implemented got to be tested in full force with mass censorship of people trying to spread truth or facts, such as the virus originating from a lab in Wuhan.

2020-2022: Mastercard and Visa colludes, following Paypal's steps and begun large-scale crackdowns on anything remotely "offensive/inappropriate/adult" after being contacted by vocal minority people with agendas.

2023: The U.K. Online Safety Act gets written into law under the false pretense of "protecting children". Possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to the internet as it is one of the most vague dumpsterfire things ever invented by design, allowing a select few individuals to determine what is "harmful", "illegal", "important" and other undefinable garbage + legally act upon them.

2024: The EU passes the "Digital Services Act (DSA)". Their version of the UK Online Safety Act, filled with all the same vague nonsensical garbage which absolutely no one asked for, allowing them to jail or fine anyone they want for anything they want.

2025: U.K. Online Safety Act gets kicked into overgear. MasterCard, Paypal, Visa and others that hold the absolute veto power of the technology required to process payments (they technically don't do it themselves) collectively contact every bank and payment processors they can in order to enforce this simple rule:

"Nothing illegal allowed."

Illegal now being: Anything that incites having a controversial thought, a different political opinion, criticism of us or our partners, any sort of adult content regardless of what it is, anything we deem 'offensive/inappropriate', anything that might 'damage our brand'.. You get the point. Anything.

2025+: Steam detonates hundreds of games following this new "rule" after a catalyst letter was sent to the payment processors by the feminist &/ woke Collective Shout group. Countless other websites and services get lit on fire at the same time as this has been a coordinated attack on free speech, human rights and the Internet by elements in the UK, EU and US to occur simultaneously.

Search engines now require IRL ID verification. Ordering a pizza now requires IRL ID verification. Using wikipedia now requires IRL ID verification and much more absolute horror.

Visa got questioned as to why they are doing this and they responded saying: "It is necessary to protect the brand". After becoming one of the most hated companies on Earth overnight, they continue to stand by their decision in complete contrast to their prior stated reasoning.

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According to Steam, this was all done without them even being contacted, signaling this being as malicious of a coordinated attack as it gets.