Insel Games Is Busted for Manipulating Review Scores
A recent Reddit post exposed Insel Games’ CEO pressuring employees to buy the company’s games and leave positive reviews on Steam. Now, in a recent update, Valve reveals that they investigated the matter and “identified unacceptable behavior involving multiple Steam accounts controlled by the publisher of this game.”
Here’s the rest of the statement:
“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.”
“For these reasons, we are ending our business relationship with Insel Games Ltd. and removing their games from our store. If you have previously purchased this game, it will remain accessible in your Steam library.”
Insel Games’ portfolio includes Guardians of Ember, Trinium Wars, and its most recent title, Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan.
The email that led to the investigation refers to Wild Buster’s revenue not meeting expectations.
“Of course I cannot force you to write a review (let alone tell you what to write)Â but I should not have to,” it read. “Neglecting the importance of reviews will ultimately cost jobs. If [Wild Buster] fails, Insel fails […] and then we all will have no job next year.”
Anyone who purchased any Insel products will still be able to access them in their Steam library.
In a similar move last year, Valve removed 200-plus games from their library that they determined were deceptive to customers.
Behind the games is shoverware” developer Silicon Echo Studios, who are known for cheap products referred to as “asset flips.” The term refers to the construction of the games, which are made of pre-bought Unity assets combined with simple gameplay mechanics. Many of them are created for the sole purpose of acquiring and selling trading cards on the Steam marketplace.