Indie beat ’em up Brok the InvestiGator, launched this week on Steam, wasn’t on my radar till its official Twitter account identified one thing unusual in regards to the opinions coming in from Steam curators. In a thread (opens in new tab) posted on Sunday, developer Cowcat claimed that it was focused by fraudulent curators who wrote bogus opinions after not even taking part in the sport.
After trying it over, the studio’s reasoning is sound. Of the 150 consumer opinions of Brok the InvestiGator printed as of this writing, 99% of them are constructive. As of yesterday morning, the one unfavourable opinions had come from Steam curators (opens in new tab). Within the case of a number of of those curators, Brok is the one unfavourable evaluation the account has ever given out of lots of of video games. It certain seems to be like a handful of Steam curator opinions, probably posted by the identical individual, have been written in retaliation to the developer. A day after Cowcat’s thread was posted, Brok’s unfavourable curator opinions had changed into constructive ones. This is the way it all went down:
Previous to Brok’s launch, Cowcat stated it obtained “tons and tons” of requests from Steam curators asking for a evaluation code. This can be a customary follow for legit curator pages, streamers, and gaming websites alike, however it additionally opens the door to scammers hoping to attain a free Steam code they’ll resell on grey market websites like G2A.
Cowcat hoped to weed out the scammers with a intelligent workaround. As a substitute of sending codes for the total recreation, it despatched codes for Brok the InvestiGator’s free prequel chapter, the thought being that legit curators would redeem the code and follow-up to ask for the total recreation whereas scammers would unknowingly promote the ineffective code on the grey market. Cowcat reckons this may need labored a little bit too nicely. In response to the dev, “only a few” reached out questioning why they’d been despatched a code for a demo, suggesting that “most of these emails are from scammers who didn’t even activate these keys on their account earlier than posting a evaluation.”
If that’s the case, these scammers would possibly’ve needed to problem refunds after reselling the code, after which proceeded to write down curator opinions with generic criticisms like “damaged gameplay” and “lack of polish” to get again at Cowcat. It is circumstantial proof, however it began to sound much less far-fetched after studying Reddit consumer darklinkpower’s evaluation (opens in new tab) of the Steam curators in query. They level out that the 9 curators who left unfavourable opinions share some fairly suspicious similarities:
- The entire curators share a standard admin consumer who can management what’s posted
- All have been created on or close to the identical day
- All share an analogous variety of followers (averaging 23,000)
- All had only one or two unfavourable opinions (together with, on the time, Brok the InvestiGator)
It wasn’t lengthy after Cowcat and darklinkpower’s posts gained traction that the curators edited their unfavourable opinions to be constructive. The identical curator who beforehand said Brok “lacks polish in all areas” apparently now believes (opens in new tab) Brok is a “fantastic cartoony detective journey” with “completely built-in beat ’em up mechanics.” Cowcat stated it has reported the curators in query to Valve.
It strikes me as unusual that this follow of revenge reviewing is even, in concept, doable. Particular person Steam customers cannot really publish opinions except they personal and have performed the sport in query, however curator pages haven’t got that limitation. That seems like a loophole that must be stuffed, although it is value noting that curator opinions aren’t weighed as closely by Valve as consumer opinions. Curator opinions are literally sectioned off from consumer opinions with a small hyperlink that I would by no means observed till in the present day and do not seem to issue into the general rating seen on the high of retailer pages.
Listed below are all of the curator opinions for the sport and you’ll discover there is a good chunk of “suspicious” unfavourable opinions. https://t.co/E2AkLggKWe(1/16) pic.twitter.com/Bu0R1qymvBAugust 28, 2022
Cowcat is equally skeptical of how a lot curator opinions in the end matter, however thinks Valve may take steps to mitigate scammers. For one, Cowcat suggests Valve “cease forcing us to depend on keys and as a substitute open Curator Join for every thing.”
Curator Join is a function on Steam’s backend that permits devs to ship video games on to trusted Steam curators. Presently, devs can solely ship as much as 100 copies of their recreation out. That, and the truth that curators haven’t any technique to request codes from devs, limits its usefulness.
I’ve reached out to Valve for remark and can replace if I obtain a response.
