Valve arbeitet nicht mehr mit dem Videospielunternehmen Insel Games zusammen und hat alle Titel dieses Entwicklers von Steam entfernt, nachdem der CEO von Insel Games die Mitarbeiter aufgefordert hatte, Nutzerrezensionen für das neueste Spiel des Unternehmens auf Steam zu veröffentlichen.
Insel Games, ein Unternehmen mit Sitz auf Malta, ist für wenig bekannte Spiele wie Guardians of Ember und das vor kurzem veröffentlichte Wild Buster verantwortlich, sorgte vor kurzem für große Aufregung, als ein Redditor eine E-Mail veröffentlichte, die CEO Patrick Streppel an Mitarbeiter gesandt hatte. Er drohte darin allen mit negativen Konsequenzen, die das neueste Spiel des Unternehmens nicht kaufen und rezensieren.
“Sadly Wild Buster’s revenue has so far not met expectations and it will be even more difficult to turn things around during the weekend as the first day is usually the strongest”, schrieb Streppel. “One of the major issues: the fact that we do not have a review score. [In] fact we have currently 6 reviews. If I alone count the people in [publisher] IME and Insel... I count more than 6 people.
“I had [sent] an email earlier but I was told that some of you announced to colleagues that you do not want to make a purchase of the game and/or a review. Frankly, this leaves me pretty disappointed. Of course I cannot force you to write a review (let alone tell you what to write) - but I should not have to. Neglecting the importance of reviews will ultimately cost jobs. If WB fails, Insel fails, IME fails and then we all will have no job next year. So I am asking you either of do the following: buy the game and present me the receipt until Friday night for which (together with a claim form) you will be re-imbursed within 24h or explain to me tomorrow why you do not wish to do this. I would like to discuss this individually and privately with each of you and will follow up.”
Diese E-Mail, die am 14. Dezember verschickt wurde, korreliert mit einem rasanten Anstieg positiver Kritiken für Wild Buster auf Steam.
In einem vorgestern in den Steam Foren veröffentlichten Eintrag schrieb ein Vertreter von Valve, dass man als Resultat dieser neuen Information alle Produkte von Insel Games aus dem Store entfernt hat. “The publisher appears to have used multiple Steam accounts to post positive reviews for their own games. This is a clear violation of our review policy and something we take very seriously. For these reasons, we are ending our business relationship with Insel Games Ltd. and removing their games from our store. If you have previously purchased this game, it will remain accessible in your Steam library.”
Insel Games’ Patrick Streppel hat mittlerweile bestätigt, die E-Mail verfasst und versandt zu haben, und sagt, dass sein Unternehmen gegen Valves Entscheidung berufen wird. Hier ist Streppels vollständiges Statement:
At the day of EA launch in December an email was sent to everyone in the company telling staff (about 20 people including freelancers) how important reviews are in the Steam ecosystem and that a failure of Wild Buster would mean the company was in jeopardy. It was meant to rally people’s support, including advertising the game to their family and friends, in the hope to simply get more reviews.
It was never intended to threaten anyone but just state the importance of reviews for the whole company. No staff has received penalties for not buying the game or writing a review. There also never were texts or instructions provided for reviews. We sincerely apologize for the misleading wording in the email and the practice in general.
We, the complete team behind Insel Games, will keep working on improving Guardians of Ember and Wild Buster while still providing access to our games through other channels. We hope to regain the trust of players through our future actions and are further in discussion with Steam about this incident.
Until then current Steam owners or those in possession of a Steam key can continue to play normally.
Dies ist nicht das erste Mal, dass Valve gegen Videospiel-Publishers vorgeht, die ihre eigenen Titel auf Steam rezensieren. Anfang des vergangenen Jahres wurde das Indie-Spiel Art of Stealth aus dem Store entfernt, nachdem entdeckt worden war, dass sein Entwickler mehrere Accounts angelegt hatte, um positive Rezensionen zu veröffentlichen.
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