Is this kind of crap “legal”?

[Reianor]

And if it's not then how do I go about properly reporting it?

I recently found a game in my games list. Which I didn't buy.



So I went to it's store page to see if it's a free weekend or giveaway or whatever else.
Turned out to be a free demo version of what looks like a game that's either dead or on it's deathbed (or at least that's the impression I got by taking a glance at their hub).
Long story short I stumbled upon a pack of suspicious reviews of it.

Copies of the same exact text made by “users” with just slightly over 5 hours in-game with country names for usernames.

All part of this group:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/UN_Vote

They call themselves “up-vote nation” and the rest shouldn't be hard to guess.
So I dunno what's valve's official view on this kind of behavior but IMHO it's definitely ban-worthy.
These people are clearly abusing community systems.

Does valve handle this kind of despicable activities on their own or did I manage to somehow miss the proper way of reporting users and/or groups for abusing various steam community features? Cus I didn't see that on the list of report reasons.

[Boomie]

I believe you can report this kind of thing. Devs aren’t allowed to artificially inflate their review scores like that.

[Reianor]

Thing is, I'm not even sure if it's devs or some overzealous fan.
I believe it's more likely to be the later.
I can easily imagine a company resorting to cheap tricks, but not in a manner that's THIS obvious.

And even if it's the game's devs that initiated this I don't think this kind of involvement is provable.
Plus I'm pretty sure it's not the first "op" by this pack of "upvoters".
I mean they got a freaking group and talk about doing this kind of crap in their description.
So even if the developer is their client, no way it's their only client.

More importantly - what's the right way of reporting this?

[Crazy Tiger]

Report the profiles and the group. I checked a few of them and most of the games they have are the ones given away for free in the past year, mostly around the early Corona period.

Doesn't look like something from the devs, just some people "having fun".

[Reianor]

Report 'em under which category?
It's not harassment, it's not impersonation, it's not piracy, it's not cheats, it's not spamming and it's not offensive profile/avatar.

[Crazy Tiger]

Inappropriate or offensive content. Just describe and put a link to both the review and group in it.

[Brian9824]

Or report the reviews itself

[Zaemon]

UP, this thread seems worthy of Steam's attention. Evil practices should be eradicated.

[KalGimpa]

only thing i can think that might be proven is that they are all the same person. i am not sure that even that can be done. not sure what rules they would be breaking if they are not the devs. kinda like vote for the worst for american idol

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Legal? There are no laws against it, no.

Does it violate Valve's own rules, yes.

[Reianor]

Originally posted by kalcuey-freehk:

only thing i can think that might be proven is that they are all the same person. i am not sure that even that can be done. not sure what rules they would be breaking if they are not the devs. kinda like vote for the worst for american idol

One thing many people seem to fail to realise is that rules are tools.
They aren't the goal, they are the means, and thus are actually secondary.
When you knowingly and intentionally screw with the order of things "it wasn't in the rules" isn't an excuse.
Even if this IS just a voting/reviewing rally by real people (which I have a hard time believing because they look more like a pack of bots to me) that alone should IMHO be punishable.

There'd be nothing wrong if a real player in a normal group decides to promote a game among his group and asks his pals to leave a review to promote the popularity of an “underrated” game if they actually liked it.
But normal group wouldn't ALL have almost the same exact playtime and use the same exact text.
IF they'd actually liked the game and were real people you'd think they'd be able to say why they liked it in their own words, no?
Hell, even their names alone are suspicious. No f-ing way is that a group of real people.

And they pretty much admit to intentionally manipulating steam's community features on their profile pages.

I don't know if steam has rules forbidding this kind of practice, but if they don't, then it's about time to make some, don't you think?

[KalGimpa]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Legal? There are no laws against it, no.

Does it violate Valve's own rules, yes.

:qr:

curious how? if it is not the devs, that is. not arguing i would like to know if it is really against the rules. i am thinking that if i played a game, even if it was when it was free and even if i really don't like it, i am still free to say i do.

Originally posted by Reianor:

Originally posted by kalcuey-freehk:

only thing i can think that might be proven is that they are all the same person. i am not sure that even that can be done. not sure what rules they would be breaking if they are not the devs. kinda like vote for the worst for american idol

One thing many people seem to fail to realise is that rules are tools.
They aren't the goal, they are the means, and thus are actually secondary.
When you knowingly and intentionally screw with the order of things "it wasn't in the rules" isn't an excuse.
Even if this IS just a voting/reviewing rally by real people (which I have a hard time believing because they look more like a pack of bots to me) that alone should IMHO be punishable.

There'd be nothing wrong if a real player in a normal group decides to promote a game among his group and asks his pals to leave a review to promote the popularity of an “underrated” game if they actually liked it.
But normal group wouldn't ALL have almost the same exact playtime and use the same exact text.
IF they'd actually liked the game and were real people you'd think they'd be able to say why they liked it in their own words, no?
Hell, even their names alone are suspicious. No f-ing way is that a group of real people.

And they pretty much admit to intentionally manipulating steam's community features on their profile pages.

I don't know if steam has rules forbidding this kind of practice, but if they don't, then it's about time to make some, don't you think?

came in after i posted :) i agree,if it was one person doing it.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by kalcuey-freehk:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Legal? There are no laws against it, no.

Does it violate Valve's own rules, yes.

curious how? if it is not the devs, that is. not arguing i would like to know if it is really against the rules. i am thinking that if i played a game, even if it was when it was free and even if i really don't like it, i am still free to say i do.

It is against the rules to manipulate reviews like this, yes.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by kalcuey-freehk:

curious how? if it is not the devs, that is. not arguing i would like to know if it is really against the rules. i am thinking that if i played a game, even if it was when it was free and even if i really don't like it, i am still free to say i do.

It is against the rules to manipulate reviews like this, yes.

And who is to say they are not jsut a group of friends who infact do like the games they got for free?

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

It is against the rules to manipulate reviews like this, yes.

And who is to say they are not jsut a group of friends who infact do like the games they got for free?

Support will decide, not us. Hence, the report function.

[Reianor]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Legal? There are no laws against it, no.

DUH. That's why I said “legal” instead of just legal.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

It is against the rules to manipulate reviews like this, yes.

Got a link to a rule that says so?
Or, better yet, a thread that explains how to properly report it?

Originally posted by kalcuey-freehk:

came in after i posted :) i agree,if it was one person doing it.

There's literally zero chance that they all wrote the exact same text in their reviews by coincidence.
Even if there WAS a separate real person behind each and every of those accounts the fact that it's the same text already means it was all one man's opinion.

Originally posted by cinedine:

And who is to say they are not jsut a group of friends who infact do like the games they got for free?

And they just happened to share a hive mind, yes?

Look “they” aren't even hiding the fact that the group is manipulating steam's community features.
It's literally in their description.

As for why it isn't a legit group of people reviewing a game I've already explained it.
Wouldn't kill a real person to actually write a sentence or two of their own for a game they actually played and liked don't you think?