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Approximately 1,000 video games have been banned from Valve’s digital distribution platform because their publishers were “abusing” the Steamworks toolkit (via PC Gamer).
Yesterday, third-party data analysis app Steam Tools recorded that 1,000 games (more or less) had been cut from Steam’s system. Doing a once-over, a handful of the games look like they might be suspicious, but lots of these products had been in the store for a long while. Why did Valve abruptly remove them from its distribution platform?
The answer was unclear. After being contacted by PC Gamer, a representative said that “a handful of partners that were abusing some Steamworks tools.” Those in the black book had been notified before Valve removed their game from the system. Developer Alexandra Frock twigged that “a good chunk” of the problematic products were all associated with a single Russian publisher, Dagestan Technology. If only it were so simple. Dagestan Technology was employing aliases on Steam and lots of the aliases’ games link together.
The connection is only discoverable through Steam Tools, because of course, Dagestan Technology’s section on Steam is now void of products. Valve didn’t say who was misappropriating the correct use of Steamworks, only that the offending content had been cut out of Steam. Strange. Expectedly, it isn’t a flawless system. One developer has been affected by the actions of a past publisher of their game, claiming that Valve accused them of “abuse of the sale of bundles.” A few of the missing games are reappearing, so hopefully those unnecessarily hit by the ban are able to iron out the miscommunication with Valve and get their product back on the store.
