Polish studio Acram Digital has been kicked off Steam after one of its developers was caught manipulating reviews.
Valve said it received a number of reports concerning review tampering on Acram releases Steam: Rails to Riches and Eight-Minute Empire, and after investigating found that company employee Grzegorz Kubas had been attempting to inflate review scores.
As a result, Valve has pulled every single Acram title from its digital marketplace, and claims it will no longer be doing business with the studio.
Replying to Valve’s post on the Steam forum, Kubas admitted to being in the wrong, and explained he acted out of frustration at the “unfair” reviews being posted by some players. He claims to have worked alone, and has asked Valve to blame him, rather than the entire team.
“You are right. I’m guilty. It came from my frustration of few bad, unfair reviews on Valve’s Steam only. It was stupid action, not something planned. This is my individual, bad behavior, not the team, so I would like to blame me, not the devs. It’s a lesson for the rest of my life and it will not happen again, ever,” wrote Kubas.
“We have never paid for any positive reviews. It was only my six fake accounts on Steam, done in amateur way, from the same computer, the same method of payment, the same IP. I was very frustrated.
“We have great developers, passionate in board games. They work very hard to deliver quality games. We listen to the players and we have implemented the features they asked for.”
The studio has written to Valve in an attempt to overcome the issue, and is waiting on a response from the Steam creator.