Kotaku reports that Steam has dropped all games from Insel Games after Valve
learned the Maltese developer prompted employees to review its own games. They note a
post on reddit showing an email from Insel CEO Patrick Streppel urging
staff to review their recently released action/RPG
Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan. They
hear from Streppel who confirms the authenticity of the email and explains his
position. He says they are appealing Valve's decision, and reassures anyone who
already owns their games that they will continue to operate as before. Valve
made
the following post explaining their reasoning in this case:
It has
been recently reported on Reddit that the publisher for this game, Insel Games
Ltd., have been attempting to manipulate the user review score for their titles
on Steam. We have investigated these claims, and have identified unacceptable
behavior involving multiple Steam accounts controlled by the publisher of this
game. 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.