You guys know I like to sort of hate watch the market and hate play games sometimes right? Well I came across this gem that kind of confirmed the suspicions of something pretty nefarious large scale going on with Valve itself potentially if they're letting these paid and bot reviews on steam run rampant. Apparently people in the reviews have been letting everyone know that they're offering DLC and it doesn't surprise me because yes I know about how this all works with giveaways and stuff.
This is why I do not like steam at all. The only way to compete as an indie dev is be as dirty as they are and yes I know about all the exploits and if you're trying to be honest good fucking luck because you may as well be competing with companies that are fake for all the good these reviews do in telling you anything about the game or the rating system itself.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963040/The_Lost_Village/
What's next are we going to see North Korea putting out their own video games as well? With the fact we have confirmed glowie presence in the games industry through government grants I would not be shocked if the CCP start getting involved more directly as well with releases of their own because I keep seeing these generic Chinese made titles by suspiciously generic company names popping up. They know how much gaming influences young people these days so they're treating it like every other medium and the shit heads glowies are trying to muscle in.
Valve may or may not be directly involved with glowies, but I certainly don't fucking trust them with how much they've been letting things get this bad lately.
I think the saddest part is how many people are actually so pathetic as to leave reviews "just" for free DLC, especially in such a mediocre looking game.
There are so many ways to exploit steam, let me post a bit of an open secret I uncovered when I first did a little platformer release on Unity. Lots of people on steam love collecting trading cards. Yes, there's an actual market for it like with micro-transactions and skins. You can end up bumping up in steam popularity if you pander to this market to a degree and people start trading them amongst themselves. They notice the trading cards and will check what game its from and buy it in order to collect them.
Devs aren't interested in making any actual games anymore, that's why they're so simplistic because the real goal is obviously the live services they're shoving into everything but it's also so they can exploit steam to high heaven. I can't make any direct accusations yet, but I am extremely suspicious about these devs beyond the usual steam review shenanigans with the movement I notice in the market.
This is why I would rather talk to all of you guys instead of attempt to fight the steam algorithm. At least you guys are fucking real human beings that play video games for the most part and I'd also rather chat to the pirates though I'm not posting there as much because I need to have more proper gameplay to show first.