Valve Bans Developer After Employees Leave Fake User Reviews (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Insel Games, a Maltese developer of online multiplayer titles, has been banned from Steam and had all its titles removed from Valve's storefront after evidence surfaced that it was encouraging employees to manipulate user review scores on the service. Yesterday, redditor nuttinbutruth posted a purported leaked email from Insel Games' CEO encouraging employees to buy reimbursed copies of the game in order to leave a Steam review. "Of course I cannot force you to write a review (let alone tell you what to write) -- but I should not have to," the email reads. "Neglecting the importance of reviews will ultimately cost jobs. If [Wild Busters] fails, Insel fails... and then we will all have no jobs next year."

In a message later in the day, Valve said it had investigated the claims in the Reddit post and "identified unacceptable behavior involving multiple Steam accounts controlled by the publisher of this game. The publisher appears to have used multiple Steam accounts to post positive reviews for their own games. This is a clear violation of our review policy and something we take very seriously." While Valve has ended its business relationship with Insel Games, users who previously purchased the company's games on Steam will still be able to use them.

Comments

Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you don't have jobs THIS year.

Poor Employees

[rwven]

The real loser here are the employees of the company. They got an email from their boss manipulating them into leaving fake reviews (essentially threatening to shut down jobs if they didn't), and now they're virtually guaranteed to lose their jobs.

Re:Poor Employees

[goose-incarnated]

Well, at least one employee seems to think that is fine.

Well ...

" "Of course I cannot force you to write a review (let alone tell you what to write) -- but I should not have to,"

The real problem is tyrannical managers who believe that they own their employees. Telling employees to commit fraud (review their own products without disclosing that they are employees) is crossing a line. This behaviour smells of management who rule their little fiefdom with very little oversight. They believe that they are at the top of the tree and a manager who wants to dictate to their employees the type of fraud to commit has been getting away with way too much already, which is why they feel safe in managing by fear.

Hopefully the shareholders drop this manager and find one who leads the employees with vision, not one who drives them with fear.

I cannot force a manager to stop acting like royalty, but I should not have to.

Re:will they refund real users? give them an unloc

[Anubis IV]

Just cause the game "works" doesn't mean it's providing the experience they were sold.

Actually, it does. You keep suggesting that these customers were sold a multiplayer experience. They weren't. They were sold a game, and that's exactly what Valve gave them. Nothing more, nothing less. At best, they were promised a multiplayer experience, but that promise didn't come from Valve.

Whether the game lives up to its promise of delivering a particular multiplayer experience is the responsibility of the publisher. Moreover, if your ability to deliver on your promises depends on maintaining a relationship with a third-party, maybe you shouldn't go breaking the contractual terms under which that relationship operates, lest you fail to be able to deliver on your promises?

As for updates, what's stopping them from updating it? I've updated plenty of games I bought on Steam with third-party patches and mods. Is there some sort of magic preventing first-parties from updating their own games? I doubt it. All they've done is cut off their ability to easily update those copies, but they've hardly cut off the ability altogether. Besides which, even if they had cut it off, it's not difficult to verify whether someone has purchased a copy of your game, at which point you can simply give them a free copy of the game off of Steam, one which you have the ability to update.

Valve may choose to give these customers a refund, but they are under no obligation to do so (excepting those who qualify under their normal terms for a refund, of course). But if Insel made promises it can't keep? It may be on the hook for those refunds, and it'd need to figure out some way to honor them without Valve.

Re:will they refund real users? give them an unloc

[vux984]

" At best, they were promised a multiplayer experience, but that promise didn't come from Valve."

If I bought the title from Valve, after reading the description on Valve, and Valve gets 30% of the cash... then Valve has an obligation to deliver what was promised along with the publisher.

This isn't some bizarre interpretation, if I buy cottage cheese and take it home, open it, and its modly, I can return it to the store I bought it from.

"At best, they were promised a multiplayer experience, but that promise didn't come from Valve."

Valve curated the title, published the promise, featured the promise prominently on their own publishing platform ("steam"), and then took a substantial component of the selling price. That promise may not have originated with Valve, but Valve most definitely passed it on with their explicit endorsement.

Re:will they refund real users? give them an unloc

[laughingcoyote]

I'm very glad Valve has "made an example" here, and I hope they follow suit with any other studios that pull the same stunt. If you want to get good reviews, make a good game. If you cheat and you get caught, you pay the price.

I certainly feel sorry for the devs and others affected by this who weren't responsible, but we can't let that stop us from penalizing cheaters.