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Started to “review the manipulations”.
A developer was launched on Steam after brazenly trying to trick users into purchasing his games by naming his company Very Positive.
You can probably see where it’s going already, but look at a game’s Steam page and you’ll see several important fields in the info panel to the right. A game’s customer rating, displayed in bright blue if positive, is easy to spot at a glance, and it’s probably the first place many Steam users look when they open a page. . But what is crucial for this story, there is other information presented in a similar way nearby, in the form of developer and publisher fields.
Noticing this, a devious, though ultimately rather naive, developer decided to exploit this potentially confusing closeness, listing their name and publisher as very positive on their game’s Emoji Evolution Steam page. “I knew that reviews have a huge impact on the customer’s decision,” the developer, using Mike’s name, told Vice: “I noticed the publisher / developer name is very close to the notice and has the same color, and I decided to use it for my purposes ….[Steam users] draw conclusions about the information by seeing familiar words and not spend a lot of time reading all the words ”.
The ruse was first spotted by the GamesDiscoverCo newsletter, which earned Mike a degree of infamy, which prompted him to be less than subtle about his cheating on Twitter. And while Mike was initially adamant, Valve wouldn’t have a problem with his plan – telling Vice, “Valve fully understands how minor this trick is” – it ultimately wasn’t.
With Very Positive Games’ ploy gaining increased attention following the developer’s cheeky social media posts – the story was picked up by multiple media outlets – Valve ultimately stepped in. And in a tweet posted several days agoMike confirmed that the company has now banned its developer account from its platform, citing “review manipulation”.
Valve banned my developer account due to “review manipulation”. Absolutely disagree with this accusation.
– Very positive developer (@verypositivedev) February 13, 2021
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Mike says he “totally disagrees[s] with that accusation, “but it looks like there may be a few more. GameDiscoverCo, when he first spotted Mike’s Steam page hijinks, also detailed what he believed to be suspicious activity around the mysteriously positive reviews of Emoji Evolution – which would anger Valve, with or without this brazenly very positive stance.
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