Are these fake reviews?
Wow, never seen something like this before in the reviews. I think you're right.
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You haven't seen The Original Trader/Gamer/Whatever Group at work then. They get a bunch of keys, admins tell to write reviews, and they write the same generic bullshit on all games.
Although since they are using random users, at least the posting and play times are random enough to not be that obvious. These guys are so amateurs with the review posting, it hurts.
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Wow, indeed, I haven't. I usually only check out a few reviews per game too.
Thanks for telling me :)
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Nah. It just so happens that 3.5 hours is exactly the playtime it takes for the game to reach perfection and mere mortals simply can not play any further than that.
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Most of these people made four steam reviews, 3/4 for the exact same games on all the accounts.
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Yes, it is obviously a bunch of fake accounts belonging to a single group. They all have exactly card drop times with no achievement, and all account use the same setup doing the same games and posting the same reviews for the same games. Most likely a group offering fake reviews for keys and card money. Even though it breaks Steam ToS, Valve won't do anything about it.
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Exactly they belong to the same group!
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/fcrpg#
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Artificially bloated so Valve won't close it down as an inactive group, and enough new topics so no moderator would want to wander there.
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There are rumours about that, it may have been enough. But, again, it is an obvious Potemkin forum, just not well-masked. There could be a good reason behind it, I am sure. Maybe not a fear of closing down, but he wanted to have a lot of topics as a sign of activity.
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Made by a Thai guy (who used a lot of photos of local girls in the bot accounts). Sadly he has an account here, so I can't just link him.
But yes, this is some underground group that uses loopholes in the system to push indie games up front. There are almost a thousand bot accounts and they randomly post reviews, apparently a few dozen for each game. It's a cozy little operation with a group that is bloted to look big with empty auto-generated topics.
new accounts all linked in the group discussion. First batch of accounts boosted over level 10 by sending the farmed cards to them and making badges, eventually snowballing into credible heights. And by spreading these cards around, sooner or later all accounts will be around level 15.
it is quite thought-out indeed. Most angles are covered in the basics, but slipping on with such banal mistakes as posting the reviews in a short time frame is incredibly stupid. If they would have spread it out in 3-5 weeks and add in 5-7% negative reviews, it would be a lot more difficult to find out.
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Is it just me or do they all have pokemon usernames?
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Very fishy indeed. Check their previous usernames. I only checked 4-5 of them, but all have had names ending with XYZ, one more suspicious thing :)
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Also they're all pokemon names from what I saw, before the XYZ.
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Good catch! Not a pokemon player here, so it didn't strike me, but you're right!
Some examples:
Dugtrio
Qwilfish
Teddiursa
Ursaring
Slugma
Pidgey
All with XYZ at the end, so DugtrioXYZ etc.
They probably came to the conclusion that it would be a bit too easy to spot if only 150 "users" with pokemon names left reviews on a single game, so they changed it, but the tracks are still there.
Oh, this is bad.
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Zombie Rush or its remastered Lemurzin? http://store.steampowered.com/app/415490/
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You're right. Only one review is honest
.
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It's too obvious
All review with 3,5h and nobody has even the "Run the first level" achievement
Also they joined steam at the same time
Just too obvious :p
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It's funny, because if you look at the setup behind it, it is really intricate. I have no idea how could that guy be so stupid to think of most everything except the most obvious telltale sign.
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maybe he thought that steam users are too lazy to check for achievs and only look at time played
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Quite obvious with all those accounts with the same amount of games and reviews, and surprise, they all have the same account in their friendlist (sometimes the only in their friendlist)
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So fake, I hope Steam do something about this....but know they will not.
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Technically, fake reviews break ToS, and this is obviously organised and sold for eager and unethical enough indie publishers. (Although strangely enough there are a few larger publishers' games in the mix.) So if they would crack on anything, this group could be.
Then again, this whole thing is obviously automated and could be rebuilt in a few days or weeks tops.
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repost that on
/r/steam
/r/pcmasterrace/
to get more visibility, I guess valve won't move its ass anyway.
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I wish I would, but I do not have account there. ;/
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https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam
It takes 5 seconds to make a reddit account and it will most likely gain exposure.
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Very suspiciou. In my humble opinoin was made by one user and run time woth multiple account with ASF NOT EVEN PLAY
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I think it's a person with like 1000 steam accounts selling greenlight votes and positive reviews. No links because can't call out.
But find review and follow groups to find the offer.
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0
playing now
100
today's peak
121
all-time peak
Powered by SteamCharts.com
Definitely suspicious
Probably 100 fakes playing at the same time, then now...no one
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sarcasm mode: ON
How could you think something like that?
Steam's review system is perfect, there's no way they could be fake...
sarcasm mode: OFF
Seriously though, it's not the first time this happens, nor will it be the last...
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It's pretty blatant, there's several topics about it on steam as well. Sadly, scummy companies always cheat review systems in any market.
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Wow and it's happening right now! I thought these reviews are couple days old, but yesterday the game review were "Very Positive" and now it's "Overwhelming Positive" !!!!
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I recently looked for games for my wishlist and browsed top 100 rated games on SteamDB. I found a game called ZombieRush. I thought about adding it, but while I was checking reviews on the store page I found out that positive reviews looked suspicious. Why? Let me explain.
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/8aZ0Srr
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/3oqyTQU
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/Bzwr2gT
http://steamcommunity.com/app/467460/reviews/
And the game looks yhmm.......like mobile game and thanks to 1ricov we know it looks like Lemurzin! xD
http://store.steampowered.com/app/415490/
And Pterodactyl Edition DLC of Lemurzin costs "only" 93$
http://store.steampowered.com/app/463990/
It seems it comes from the same or a friend xD Any questions? XD
Reviews come from people who belong to that group http://steamcommunity.com/groups/fcrpg
These are my thoughts and what do you think about it? Do you agree/disagree and why? Please discuss.
RECENT NEWS: Bots group has been administratively disabled. http://steamcommunity.com/groups/fcrpg
Review number has been decreased from 500 to 310
Let me know if their accounts were banned and I will add some info here too :)
Most games from this developer cannot be bought now
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467460
http://store.steampowered.com/app/473490
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467560
http://store.steampowered.com/app/462060
Additional resources from SG user InquisitorAles:
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/C2q2ln2
Update:
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/xHw7Rbe
Additional articles, which appeared after this discussion thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/4nczdg/apparently_someone_is_exploiting_the_review/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/4ncxof/apparently_someone_is_exploiting_the_review/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/4nfxfj/steam_spy_on_twitter_looks_like_someone_figured/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/4nk57a/some_games_involved_with_the_review_botting/
http://mmofallout.com/nm-zombierush-is-definitely-buying-reviews/
http://www.pcinvasion.com/steam-fake-review-problem
Bot creator has been banned from community:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198099557613
https://steamrep.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fsteamcommunity.com%2Fprofiles%2F76561198099557613
According to..
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/4nk57a/some_games_involved_with_the_review_botting/d44wu9r
On google docs is avaiable file, which contains games, which might participated in this scam program:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UKKWPLpEwnOMeRqZDL1oqQr5WhvMWVDTA5A2vyx3ac/edit#gid=0
^^ Link has become private.
Publisher Rai Games responded about Zombie Rush incident in annoucement:
http://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791454240121/announcements/detail/886462256235816821
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