All 173 Games in Their Catalogue, to Be More Specific
There’s a lot of shovelware on Steam. One of the downsides of being an open market is that people are free to fill it with garbage. This doesn’t mean people will buy it, but those terrible games are still there, taunting you. Anyways, Valve just pulled 173 Silicon Echo Studios games from their system.
What do all those games have in common? It appears they were all made using pre-built Unity assets for barrel-bottom prices. Not only that, but the games were mostly used for acquiring and selling trading cards on Steam’s marketplace. Shady! You’ll be forgiven for not recognizing the company name, as it’s unlikely they’ve created any of your favourite titles. Maybe you’ve seen the name Zonitron? It’s the one they used to sell their garbage games. Making games is easier than ever, and companies like Silicon Echo are proving how dangerous that can be in a wild-west setting like Steam.
How cheap were these games? Quite often, they were free! At least, they were part of incredibly cheap bundles that let you pick them up for a few cents. Conversely, you could sell the trading cards in question for 25 cents each. None of this sounds like a bank heist, exactly, but the numbers add up. Steam is trying to crack down on shady dealings occurring under their noses, but that market is… large. If nothing else, this crackdown is a big step forward in getting shovelware off their system.