In addition to player reviews, the Steam platform also has a section called “Connoisseurs”, which is a function used by the platform to build community recommendations. Steam connoisseurs are often able to write reviews before the game is released. However, this This feature has gradually become a loophole for fraud.
“Brok the InvestiGator” is a point-and-click adventure game that was launched on August 27 this year. Although it has not received much attention, at least players who have played the game have voted for it. The story describes a crocodile private detective who lost his life. His wife and son depend on each other, but some strange things have happened around him recently, and he will also investigate alone.
The game “Brok the InvestiGator” mainly has common puzzle solving and side-scrolling battles. Although the gameplay is common, the art design and action performance are quite good. However, the development team COWCAT unexpectedly found that their game was voted by a large number of Steam connoisseurs. Not recommended.
BROK is currently being mass targetted by Steam curators sending negative reviews ????
⬇️ THREAD ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ae0L24ei3H
— BROK ???? OUT NOW! (@COWCATGames) August 28, 2022
According to COWCAT’s observation, these connoisseurs have reviewed and recommended more than 100 games, and only gave “Brok the InvestiGator” no recommendation, and COWCAT further pointed out that they received a large number of Steam connoisseurs before the game was released. Requests for free evaluation serial numbers , but it is suspected that these serial numbers will be transferred to the G2A trading platform for resale.
In order not to let scammers resell the serial number of their own games, COWCAT chose to give the serial number of the prologue demo version, which angered these connoisseurs. COWCAT said that these connoisseurs did not even activate the demo version number when they voted for the negative review, and the fraud is quite obvious.
At the same time, according to the personal observation of the overseas reddit player darklinkpower, the connoisseurs of such retaliatory comments are likely to be instigated by the same connoisseur, and found that the nine connoisseurs who left negative comments have suspicious similarities, including more than one person. Accounts post content, all comments are created within a day, all connoisseurs have roughly the same number of followers, and there are only 1-2 games that are not recommended, all of which happen to include Brok the InvestiGator.
After the news was exposed in the player discussion community, Valve seems to have taken action. In addition to the deletion of the above 9 bad connoisseurs, there are other 11 Curator accounts removed for violating Steam Community Guidelines。
Steam Connoisseur is a recommendation function for players to build a community. Unlike ordinary players who need to buy games or play for a certain period of time before they can comment, connoisseurs can give comments without owning the game, and they may indeed become interested people. Fraud pipeline. Of course, no matter how well-intentioned the platform is, there is always a need to beware of human malice on the Internet.
