There should be warnings before bans for steam reviews

[Cool Naoto]

I recently had a review of mine for the game Dokapon Kingdom: Connect banned. First off there is absolutely no indication as of why it was banned so I had to resort to steam support to get information on that in which I learned that my review, according to them, encouraged piracy. Now this confused me greatly as that wasn't my intention at all with the review but when I looked over my review closer I saw that around the end I had said something along the lines of, "without paying such a high price you can emulate it and use parsec for a better time".

From the perspective of someone who owns the original game and respective console (PS2 or Wii, Wii in my case) this does not have anything to do with piracy as it is entirely within the owners legal right to dump the ISO file and throw it onto an emulator on their computer, however when writing this review I failed to consider that from the perspective of someone who does not own the game it is substantially less cheap to buy a wii/ps2 and/or the original game and then dump the files thus only being cheaper if you were to pirate it.

I find it incredibly unfair to have your feelings on a game be permanently blocked off from being seen due to a small mistake in wording that only violates steams guidelines off of personal perspective. To me the ban (and how I was treated trying to ask steam support 5 separate times for clarification getting copy paste responses about how encouraging piracy is bad) feels like the moderator felt as if my review was saying, "Go pirate the game guys!" and that it should simply be obvious why it was banned.

My suggestion is that there should be, at the very least, a greater level of information given about a ban and more importantly a system in place for giving users warnings when the content they posted only probably violates the guidelines rather than being blatant and obvious.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Cool Naoto:

I recently had a review of mine for the game Dokapon Kingdom: Connect banned. First off there is absolutely no indication as of why it was banned so I had to resort to steam support to get information on that in which I learned that my review, according to them, encouraged piracy. Now this confused me greatly as that wasn't my intention at all with the review but when I looked over my review closer I saw that around the end I had said something along the lines of, "without paying such a high price you can emulate it and use parsec for a better time".

From the perspective of someone who owns the original game and respective console (PS2 or Wii, Wii in my case) this does not have anything to do with piracy as it is entirely within the owners legal right to dump the ISO file and throw it onto an emulator on their computer, however when writing this review I failed to consider that from the perspective of someone who does not own the game it is substantially less cheap to buy a wii/ps2 and/or the original game and then dump the files thus only being cheaper if you were to pirate it.

I find it incredibly unfair to have your feelings on a game be permanently blocked off from being seen due to a small mistake in wording that only violates steams guidelines off of personal perspective. To me the ban (and how I was treated trying to ask steam support 5 separate times for clarification getting copy paste responses about how encouraging piracy is bad) feels like the moderator felt as if my review was saying, "Go pirate the game guys!" and that it should simply be obvious why it was banned.

My suggestion is that there should be, at the very least, a greater level of information given about a ban and more importantly a system in place for giving users warnings when the content they posted only probably violates the guidelines rather than being blatant and obvious.

They used to specifically note discussion about emulators as a big "do not do", as it's usually inferred when people mention it as well, hence why some peoples reviews can be hit for encouraging such. That is why if it appears as hinting at or encouraging piracy, they will ban the review with no warning as it was reported, looked into, and they came to that conclusion.

Originally posted by Cool Naoto:

"without paying such a high price you can emulate it and use parsec for a better time".

That would definitely come across as encouraging such. What you do with your copy in your own place with software is up to you, but they definitely don't like vague mentions of "without paying such a high price" or things like such being mentioned with "emulation" as it hints at being obtained illegitimately.

Always read a review twice before submitting & don't submit it if it hints at doing things which is not operating a steam digital copy.

[Cool Naoto]

This is my point though, there should be warnings when it is vague or potentially hinting at it rather than an immediate ban.

[William Shakesman]

The review bans are bizarrely punitive well beyond the actual crimes they are trying to punish. It is one of the flaws with Steam's system, sadly. Many users simply need to be directed as to what the limits are and they are happy to comply but there are a lot of folks who want infinite punishment for any infraction.

[Cool Naoto]

I was writing the review from the perspective of comparing it to the original game, this had me in a mindset of, "is it worth getting this remaster or should you just play the original?" For me a review is about how you yourself experienced the game.

[Satoru]

Steam has an EXTREMLY high bar for a review to be removed.

This is not something that requires a 'warning', because you already know why it was removed. If you cleared the EXTREMELY high bar for a review to be removed you don't need a warning, you already know why it was removed

[76561197960287930]

Not sure why it is even banned. Contact Steam Support

Unfortunately a very poorly handled port of a stupid fun little game. Dokapon Kingdom is a weirdly interesting game that combines party games with turn based rpgs resulting in a goofy heavily rng based hellhole that you get to drag your friends into and I would highly recommend anyone to at least take a look at it. This specific port of the game however has a handful of issues that were seriously just not needed.

The first major problem to mention are the random bloat things like "(This Persons) Turn" coming up at the start of every single turn or how pvp has been made slower by forcing each person to take turns picking their option rather than both at the same time. Another confusing change is the removal of being able to type in a custom name when pranking someone, I get not allowing this for random online matches because it would be bad if little timmy got the game and was renamed to "stale ♥♥♥♥ cheese" but I don't get why there is no option to enable custom names in private and/or offline matches.

There's also a handful of censorship changes but these aren't really too bad, some of the changes are pretty reasonable like changing the names for some of the face options and the outfit changes are generally good looking without being lazily covered up. Overall the only things your getting from this port are built in online play and icons that properly reflect what input device your using to play with, these are in my opinion not worth the price. If you want to play Dokapon online without paying such a high price just use Parsec and emulate the Wii version of the game using Dolphin, this way you get the original experience without the minor annoying gameplay changes.

Another honest user opinion banned.
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/consumer-review-fairness-act-what-businesses-need-know

But Valve keeps allowing reviews of no context at all ascii art, memes spam, and bot account spam reviews in CS2 and DOTA 2 - The Best Game - Extremely high bars. lol

[Cool Naoto]

Steam support said it was for encouraging piracy so I assumed it was the last section, "If you want to play Dokapon online without paying such a high price just use Parsec and emulate the Wii version of the game using Dolphin, this way you get the original experience without the minor annoying gameplay changes." I absolutely made a mistake in my wording since from the perspective of someone who has no experience with Dokapon and never had the original ps2 or wii game would have to pirate it, but it's not like I'm actively telling people to go out and download it. This is why I think it's unfair to resort immediately to a ban rather than a warning.

[76561197960287930]

Originally posted by Cool Naoto:

Steam support said it was for encouraging piracy so I assumed it was the last section, "If you want to play Dokapon online without paying such a high price just use Parsec and emulate the Wii version of the game using Dolphin, this way you get the original experience without the minor annoying gameplay changes." I absolutely made a mistake in my wording since from the perspective of someone who has no experience with Dokapon and never had the original ps2 or wii game would have to pirate it, but it's not like I'm actively telling people to go out and download it. This is why I think it's unfair to resort immediately to a ban rather than a warning.

And at the same time Valve offers emulation software?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1118310/RetroArch/

Hypocrites!

And never mind Spacewar (App 480) right Steam Support and Valve? Yep probably pirates!

[Cool Naoto]

I'm pretty much certain that this is entirely due to the mention of Dolphin, if I just left that out they probably would've passed over it. I literally say in my P5R review that pirating the game is a better option for access to the game than buying it because of Denuvo yet that isn't encouraging piracy?

[76561197960287930]

Well I play games without paying high prices, EPIC GAMES Freebies!
Everyone get your free Deus Ex - Mankind Divided - and The Bridge no piracy required!

As far as I know Denuvo is removed on Deus Ex - Mankind Divided there like GOG, unlike the Steam version.

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by Cool Naoto:

but it's not like I'm actively telling people to go out and download it.

It very much sounds like you are. Your phrasing doesn't really fall into a grey area, as you're explicitly suggesting how to emulate the game without spending money. Just take it as a learning experience and be more careful with future reviews.

[Cool Naoto]

Explaining how to emulate a game has nothing to do with piracy, emulators in general have nothing to do with piracy. It is entirely how you obtain the ROM or ISO file that determines if it was piracy or not and I do not at all explicitly state how to get it.

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by Cool Naoto:

Explaining how to emulate a game has nothing to do with piracy, emulators in general have nothing to do with piracy. It is entirely how you obtain the ROM or ISO file that determines if it was piracy or not and I do not at all explicitly state how to get it.

Right, but "You can play the game without spending money by emulating it" sounds a lot like encouraging piracy. It's pretty blatant.

[Cool Naoto]

Overall I am not trying to argue that I did not encourage piracy, my entire point is that it is dependent on the perspective of the reader on if it does or not. If we are gonna be realistic here just go read my review of Persona 5 Royal and tell me why that DOES NOT encourage piracy while this does.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Users should never suggest emulation in any form in any of their UGC.