A game maker got banned from Steam for naming his developer/publisher "Very Positive".


As you can see in the above screenshot, this caused the words "Very Positive" to appear very close to the normal review score, and could possibly think his "Positive" rated game was a bit higher rated than it actually was.

More details:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/...view-trickery/

In response to the ban, the developer has released the game, Emoji Evolution, on itch.io as Pay What You Want (including $0):

https://verypositive.itch.io/emoji-evolution

Itch.io appears to not have any problem with the developer's name.

I'd feel bad for them if there were any proof that they chose that name for any reason other than gaming the system on Steam and fooling people to think it's rated higher than it was.

Plus, let's be honest, intentional or not this gave them a lot more visibility than they ever would have gotten otherwise.

That's a deceptive name. I bet if they changed it they could have stayed on Steam. I back the corporate megalords on this one.

Yeah switch it to Very Manipulative and they'd be back in no time.

They knew exactly what they were doing, and it sounds like it paid off. Their game is probably trash.

I mean, you could download it for free and find out...

Why do that when I can just pass judgement from afar?

OK I played it so you don't have to.

It's basically a Doodle God clone. You start off with 3 elements, and start combining them to get more elements. Most recipes for new elements are combination of 2 elements, although there's a handful of 3 and 4 element recipes.

The recipes range from clever to nonsensical. I did get a laugh when I combined "circus" and "human."

There's a recipes chart that can act like a cheat sheet. All the recipes are initially shown, with the elements behind lock symbols. When you unlock a new element, it gets filled in on the recipes it's used in. So if you unlock all the elements for a recipe, you can just look at the recipe chart to see what elements you can combine to create that new recipe. I ended up resorting to this to complete all the recipes, although there was one 2 ingredient recipe that never got unlocked.

There's one song that's just on an endless loop throughout the game. You can mute the game, but you can't mute just the music and keep the sound effects. The game does save progress if you exit out.

It's not a bad game, but there's plenty of much better games out there.

Did you give it a Very Positive review or a Slightly Negative one? Also, thanks for taking one for the team.

itch.io has a star rating system. I guess "Very Positive" would be akin to 5 stars?

4 I think, I know there is an Overwhelmingly Positive level on Steam