Valve has been on the prowl for “fake” games that have been recently put on Steam with containing little to no original content. Valve has reportedly removed 173 titles from the online gaming service, the majority of the titles belonging to a studio by the name of Silicon Echo. This is all part of Valve’s ongoing fight with asset flippers: developers that create games using other (previously made) assets to make a profit. The games use pre-made assets which is how the studio managed to release 86 titles in two months.
Silicon Echo Studios also managed to submit multiple games under one Steam Direct application, letting them skip the $100 fee that it costs to push a game through Steam. Valve commented on the removal of the titles and stated that, “…This person was negatively impacting the functionality of the store and our tools. For example, this person was mass-shipping nearly-identical products on Steam that were impacting the store’s functionality and making it harder for players interested in finding fun games to play. This developer was also abusing Steam keys and misrepresenting themselves on the Steam store.”
Valve just wants Steam to be a safe place for people to enjoy playing video games that are not “fakes”. Here’s hoping that other studios don’t also take advantage of Steam like Silicon Echo did.
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