What do you think about developers posting fake reviews for their own games?
If steam finds out about it, they will probably pull all their games from the store. I think they have done it in the past to other devs.
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I've reported them, and maybe others will too, if they notice what is going on.
It's a pathetic effort to try and whitewash the negative reviews, and dupe users into handing over their cash under false pretenses.
I imagine Valve can look at the IP addresses for these accounts, the review timelines, and where exactly the Steam keys came from...?
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Did you report the game or the accounts that reviewed it? I was going to do this in the past, but wasn't sure how. I saw a game where there was a bunch of reviewers that all had the exact same time in the game like they set it to idle for a certain time and the reviews said similar things. I checked their accounts and there was other similarities including a few of them using the same previous usernames.
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I took the time to report both the game and the reviewers. Hopefully it increases the chance of someone from Steam Support noticing what is going on and taking action...
The reasons for reporting aren't especially helpful, but I reported the games for a "law violation" and the fake users for "harrassment"...
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Report the games in question for fraud and then copy&paste this topic into the additional notes, same for every review that looks like a shill. It gives more workload to Steam staff and makes it much more likely that it gets noticed, due to all reports dealing with the same subject.
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It looks like they specifically leave out any option for flagging things like this. I guess we could always email valve directly if they don't want to add a proper reporting option.
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Ikr, closest to this is fraud, so i'd use that. And the additional notes make it more clear what the report is about.
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IP addresses, probably. For the last two things i don't think it's that easy to pinpoint like a IP. Steam keys are all generated for the dev or publisher anyway and then the question is what responsibility devs or publishers have for them in terms of usage. I'm pretty sure they could do with them whatever they want because it's so hard to track them.
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Valve will not do anything. Since steam direct Steam is full of garbage. You can report as much as you want, nothing will happen.
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I'm pretty sure when they find out that a developer is faking reviews, they pull all their games from Steam. I have heard about it happening more than once.
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Wow... Seems pretty steep. Most DLC prices are a little on the pricey side, but that is straight-up, balls-out, todger-flapping-jauntily-in-the-wind robbery...
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if most shitty developer with all his 44 "games" still not banned i don't think valve will care about 5-10 fake reviews.
Also this reviews could be from some fake youtuber from keymaller, not directly from dev accounts
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But that guy doesn't actively try to fuck with Valve's precious algorithms that can supposedly replace all human oversight. So that's ok. If you follow Valve Logic instead of common sense.
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yeap, u can be homophobic asset-flip developer and ppl will still buy bundles with your trash-games ¯ \\ (ツ) / ¯
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Yeah with Steam Direct, if you have a spare $100, you can put basically anything onto that platform without any kind of real content control, and this is the result. And through bundles and stuff, since some people will buy it just because it exists, you easily will gain your $100 back, no matter how bad your game is (Or how much full of prejudice or hate).
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This is very sad. Taking time to report all of these now.
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Well, that's where Steams latest changes, making everything private by default, comes in really handy.
If you want to have your tracks covered that is
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Thanks for the info. I hate ANYONE that cheats or scams people.
So i had flagged them with a shortened Text:
A attempt to falsely inflate Steam ratings:
Acram Digital use dif. accounts to give positive reviews to their own games (each have 3-4 Games and Review 2):
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198815194172/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198815188835/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198814633192/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198815346924/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198822264480/recommended/
I hate it when you don't have enough space to explain such things better/more.
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I want to proceed with a report as well. That thing is just pathetic. Can't find a reason though which describes this situation. Should i go with fraud? Could you let me know which one you used? Thanks in advance!! :)
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Reported and reported. Both the game and the shills accounts.
I hate when shit developers do that.
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Wanted to applaud you for your finding.
I will see about passing the information off to some contacts I have at Valve to see what the make of it, as this would be violating their review policies.
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Great. Hopefully there is something they can do to fix their wagon...
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I've gotten the impresion before that valve ignores user reports of this kind of thing, only going after devs if it is posted to social media (ie. the Steam board on Reddit)
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...Wow, they didn't even try to make any effort to conceal it.
By the way, under which exact category would this be reported? I don't see "falsifying reviews" or anything remotely relevant.
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I reported it as "law violation" but others have, probably more accurately" reported it as "fraud".
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Another 'dev' that has done this is 'For Kids', and their gam (doesn't deserve to be called a game) Beyond The Wall. Surprisingly, they've recently removed/hidden some of the fake reviews (there were like 20 of them shown at one point), probably in an attempt to make it less noticeable. A few months ago, I, and others, reported the 'game', and of course nothing has happened. The 'dev' also gives themselves fake awards, and quite a few of their titles are on the verge of copyright infringement, and I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of their titles are asset flips. I know for sure that Temple Escape and Pixel Traffic: Circle Rush are both asset flips - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/temple-escape-95339 & https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/circle-crash-88702
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I have rails to riches... I feel like an idiot. Reported
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RIP These games.
Edit
2 MAY - JASON
We've received a number of reports for Steam review manipulation on the titles Steam: Rails to Riches and Eight-Minute Empire, from Acram Digital. After investigating these reports we have found that the developer, Grzegorz Kubas, has been trying to inflate the user review score for his titles. This is against our policy, and something we take very seriously.
Because of Grzegorz's actions, we have removed all games/DLC developed by Acram from our store, and will no longer be doing business with him. Existing owners will be able to keep their titles.
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This has to be one of the most blatant attempts I've seen to falsely inflate Steam ratings:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/656590/EightMinute_Empire/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/595930/Steam_Rails_to_Riches/
Acram Digital are setting up shill accounts to give positive reviews to their own games:
Check out the following links:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198815194172/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198815188835/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198814633192/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198815346924/recommended/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198822264480/recommended/
There are many other examples of these shill accounts on the page.
I cordially invite anyone who would like to see shady developers like this burn in a fiery pit of Gaben's eternal post-curry farts to click the flag on the page, and report the game, on the basis of the above links..
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