Sometimes studios and publishers attempt to take advantage of the community’s naivety by deceiving people into believing their product is not how it really is. Take the incident last year in which theUK banned mobile ads for misleading informationwith regard to the likes of such games asHomescapes. Now it appears an independent developer has occurred some corporate wrath and been kicked off Steam byValvefor a similar practice.
According to a recent report,Valvehas had to ban a small-time studio consisting of a single person from its PC gaming platform for naming its company ‘Very Positive.’ This has led theHalf-Lifestudio to conclude that the developer has been trying to mislead gamers by tricking them into thinking its games have received positive reviews.
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As mostSteam usersare aware, the info panel on a game’s page will display such information as its release date, as well as recent / all reviews, which can say whether a game is “mixed,” “very positive,” “overwhelmingly popular,” etc. Near to this is the name of the game’s developer and publisher. This means a development studio calling itself Very Positive can make it seem like their game has a higher review score, even if it’s been poorly received. Many users may take a cursory glance at the info panel and mix up the company name for its game’s overall review. This is the issue Valve is taking with the name.
Very Positive (which is run by a person calling themselves Mike) took to Twitter recently to express their disappointment at Valve’s decision to initiate a total ban. Of course, this isn’t the first time the gaming conglomerate has been the subject of controversy due to banning people or games from its client. In 2018,nearly 180 games were removed from Steamfor not meeting expectations. As of now, any attempts to search for the developer’s gameEmoji Evolutionsimply yields zero results, so it looks as though it may have to find another platform to try and sell it on.
