devs reviewing their own game?

[AgustinAbadi]

look, i could forget about bad launches, but manipulating steam reviews is a dark stain that stormgate will never get clean.
were you out of your mind?!
a bad release could be saved, but this anti consumer review manipulation is just anti consumer.
i still can't believe they have so little hope on their own game, that some devs have to organize and fake reviews to manipulate the scores.
shameful, they should be fired at least, this breaks every goodwill on the "developer-gamer" relationship. reviews are from gamers to other gamers, if devs want to talk about their game they should do a blog post.
this is so bad, wrong and bad.

[Maraxus]

Also they just had a sudden huge influx of positive reviews bringing it over mixed again LOL.
https://i.imgur.com/b19r4Nh.png
Went from 37% to 45% in a few hours... OMG. Just shameless at this point.

Edit: Apparently they are being positive review botted. Someone naughty and taking advantage of the whole "Boy who cried wolf" thing, counter-trolling FG after the fake reviews fiasco lol. But I would take this with a gigaton of salt, as it is coming from FG.

Holy ♥♥♥♥ this has more twists than an episode of Game of Thrones.

[Moobert]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Maraxus:

Some guy got banned from Discord for a week after talking about this lol. They made a Reddit thread and now that's locked too.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1hxob05/i_was_banned_for_raising_my_negative_opinion_on/

The clown fiesta never ends, bro.

FG's recipe for... something:

• Make mediocre game
  
• Exploit your playerbase
  
• Engage in questionable marketing practices
  
• Make everyone walk on eggshells
  
• ???
  
• ???

Reminds me of Dragon Age Failguard. The game reviews started out negative, then suddenly somehow got 20K positive reviews over night. Banned anyone that questioned it.

[Maraxus]

Oh yeah, and then it went back down to mixed. And the player count also cratered. All the while journalists were praising it to high heaven. Just Standard Operating Procedure for big studios nowadays.

[GiveMeCake]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Maraxus:

They also seem to have had a plant to ask fake questions for the recent AMA and now that account is deleted.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1hi997z/attempted_plant_material_cod_7157_for_tomorrows/

https://old.reddit.com/user/Material_Cod_7157/

https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Stormgate/comments/1hhyi8p/frost_giant_dev_ama_december_20_10am_pt_1pm_et/

Apparently they are sharing notes with their buddies at Blizzard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPwgvoF03M4
Also might explain why there was zero hype and interest after the AMA and patch. A lot of these questions aren't even from real players, with real concerns. It is all manufactured to game the systems in some way, holy ♥♥♥♥. Dead Internet theory seems more and more real every day. Imagine if they instead spent all this effort into making a great game. :p

I completely forgot about that D4 Q&A, wow they really are ex-Blizzard employees.

[Maraxus]

Yup there was also a video of this guy finding out D4 and Starfield had hundreds if not thousands of botted positive reviews. It was the same pattern everywhere. It was amazing watching him unravel it all, sadly I can't find the video anymore.

Then the same thing happened with the D4 expansion, great reviews, I didn't even bother checking much anymore as I imagine many, but I bought it because of the great journalist reviews. Then It sucked so much, user score went down to 50ish%. Then I vowed Blizzard... never again... then the WC remasters came out and I bought them like an ♥♥♥♥♥. Turns out they are incomplete. The cut scenes are missing/badly upscaled, missing animations for example buildings in snow used to shimmer. Now I am on Blizzard never again version 3.4. Part of the reason why they keep getting away with it is because we keep falling for it I guess lol, though I do admit they are very adept at taking advantage of people's nostalgia. Or perhaps blizzard was just too good back then, it's easy to feel nostalgic about it.

But one thing is certain, I don't trust journalists/crowdfunding/live services/studios/influencers/etc, the whole ecosystem basically, anymore. It's completely rotten to the core. To the devs that are earnestly trying to build a good game without all this chicanery, I salute you.

[Solacex]

You know what's wild though? I got ♥♥♥♥ from the moderator Senna for merely upvoting my own feedback in their discord lol

[Maraxus]

That truly is wild... those people are far too gone.. it really is a cult. >.<

[ChillFlame]

Back to the mixed reviews, baby

[Maraxus]

Here they are already trying to blame someone else.

https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1hy11rw/espionage_strikes_stormgate_reviews_on_steam/

Interesting how all this will develop. Is it the boy crying wolf or yet another FG-certified hoodwinking? If it is then... this would be a new low even for FG lol.

And now this has spawned a new concern thread.
https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1hy38bj/the_entire_undercover_dev_stormgate_controversy/
Stormgate is the gift that keeps on giving.

If one day someone wants to make a Stormgate documentary they are gonna have a really hard job untangling all these webs of deception.

Also, the guy who posted about the fake reviews in discord gets banned for a week, but this other guy who is a literal psychopath joking about doxxing and going to people's homes and stabbing them in real life gets to keep yapping no problem because he kisses FG's ass. This is really cult level stuff and it really suggests FG fosters, or at least tolerates this kind of behavior. This is really reaching weird levels of degeneracy.
https://imgur.com/a/HFSdcHQ
They have their own Roberto running lose in the Discord Echochamber of DoOooOm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56NUMdxHbKI
Also also, reddit posts that even suggest FG astroturfing are disappearing from the feed with no given reason like this one:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1hy73dv/i_catch_myself_to_many_times_thinking_about_that/

This is too crazy. A new wave of review botting has hit SG. This time with more negative than positives.
https://i.imgur.com/shDYsrt.png

Now this is unacceptable, so FG has finally decided to report it to Steam(allegedly).
https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1hypkny/frost_giant_has_reported_the_suspicious_bot/

But this means... Steam might also become aware of FG's own review manipulations. If it is indeed an outsider doing this, it is quite the brilliant move.

Also another post on r/realtimestrategy. Because r/stormgate keeps removing threads talking about this so people feel there is nowhere else to go. The denizes of r/rts are, understandably getting of hearing about stormgate.
https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1hyb4cz/update_to_stormgate_drama_they_are_now_being/

Keeping you abreast of the latest developments in this highly pointless drama.

[Kuhgelrund]

ChillFlame, I would really love to know why you are still here in the communityhub? Of course it is your right to be here, but from various discussions, it seems clear you are not satisfied with the game or company producing it. That leaves the question: Why still engage with it? If you don't like something, leave a negative review, maybe do a post about it and leave it behind. After all, you don't enjoy it right?

I really don't understand why you would choose to remain here when everything is bad.
Is it fun mocking people? Trying to shame people for liking something you don't?

No I'll will intended, I would sincerely like to understand what keeps you here.

[AZCards]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Kuhgelrund:

ChillFlame, I would really love to know why you are still here in the communityhub? Of course it is your right to be here, but from various discussions, it seems clear you are not satisfied with the game or company producing it. That leaves the question: Why still engage with it? If you don't like something, leave a negative review, maybe do a post about it and leave it behind. After all, you don't enjoy it right?

I really don't understand why you would choose to remain here when everything is bad.
Is it fun mocking people? Trying to shame people for liking something you don't?

No I'll will intended, I would sincerely like to understand what keeps you here.

Its weird to single out one person when multiple people are doing the same thing. Why are you obsessed with chillflame?

[Maraxus]

Yeah ChillFlame, what is wrong with you? Can't you politely let them run this scam operation in peace. : /

[cybercybercybercyber4]

as long as its just one account per dev and no ♥♥♥ is used, i see no problem with them reviewing their own game. its like a politician voting for himself...thats ok.

they did not admit to use bots or multiaccounts. If they did or didnt, who knows, but they did not admit that.

[Maraxus]

The problem is they changed their name before reviewing, but didn't realize steam keeps the old aliases unless you delete them. When found out, downplayed it, deleted the previous aliases and made the accounts private. Then they made some bs PR statement about company policy. The CEO should know better. It is not the actions per se, but the intent to deceive and avoid responsibility that sadly, is a recurring theme in FG's actions. That's what continues to piss people off.

Hell I didn't participate in the crowdfunding nor bought the bundles, but just watching and reading about their actions pisses me off(so i can only imagine how people that have been invested in this since the beginning must feel). I feel all this has been a net negative for the RTS genre in general. It pisses me off that this is happening with the legacy of a once great series. It pisses me off that they so lightly take of advantage of people's hopes and nostalgia for their own benefit.

The cherry on top is when they call steam/reddit/youtube the Wild West when they have been acting like pirates of silicon valley all along.

[Solacex]

Diposting pertama kali oleh cybercybercybercyber4:

as long as its just one account per dev and no ♥♥♥ is used, i see no problem with them reviewing their own game. its like a politician voting for himself...thats ok.

they did not admit to use bots or multiaccounts. If they did or didnt, who knows, but they did not admit that.

I think this would be okay if they didnt quickly change their names AND if their discord moderator (senna) wouldn't argue against the fact of upvoting your own posts (accused me of "manipulating public perception" when I upvoted my own feedback even though I just kinda got used to upvoting your own stuff as reddit does it automatically etc.

https://i.imgur.com/XXNJOzI.png

It really is ironic.