Hundreds of Games are Faking Their Reviews, Here's How

sadly always gonna be someone trying to cheat the system
be it publishers, developers or community members

if only valve could create a system to detect them, but then we would see actual reviews being flagged also
they have been making advancements against stuff like this but it is tough to combat
there are groups that hide in the dark offering payment for reviews, publishers and devs commenting on profiles of everyone they can to give keys too for positive reviews, groups that seem legitimate but have corrupt admin altering there curators reviews
groups that offer promotion yet on side misuse keys, sadly always been this type people abusing developer and publisher trust
or publishers abusing developer trust

things will never be perfect but we can always keep an eye out for these bad actors
who mislead people all for greed, we need true reviews over the short or copy paste among the other types that help none
we need reviews that help us the consumer and them the developers and publishers but on a truthful level

maybe valve should add an reviewer ranking system
the higher the rank the more trustworthy which could build up over time
over the ones that just joke around or mess around with reviews or review bomb always
as i know some great reviewers but sadly you cant always go on the opinions of others and even when you try too
many times you run into reviews which are less then helpful too often
many being complaints among other things too not actual reviews....

may the light shine and things become better, though sadly paid reviews have been a thing for awhile now
the problem has always been telling which are and which aren't
some are easier like the copy pasters who sometimes go as far as to copying others reviews

sadly valve can only do so much
but with community help may they be able to squish these groups that offer reviews for payment

It's a magic circle: new feature gets added, people use it, it's useful, sometimes even great... bad actors find ways to abuse it and make it bad and less useful for everyone, Valve bans some, others find new more complicated obscure ways, someone finds those too, new ways get found... Sadly this website will, now that it was revealed, probably disappear and return under a new domain tomorrow...

Human ingenuity is a wonderful thing, but sadly more often used to "overcome" than to create.

Wow, I love the reviews after "playing" for hours saying they love the game, but haven't even completed the tutorial or leveled up, haha. XD
Such smart.

View attached image.

Good job uncovering cheaters! Country should know its heroes.

So a little update:

The website has been hidden, and now redirects to KeyMailer

I received a community ban after a couple of the developers banned me from their hubs.

One of the developers made a particularly bad and ill-informed response

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Sentinels_of_the_Store/announcements/detail/4179979397363226366

YouTuber SidAlpha has covered the topic on his channel! Thanks Sid!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASRDwjZCfg

Valve have issued a response to the Obzor website: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Sentinels_of_the_Store/announcements/detail/6740283029043478241

Their prices are garbage. Spending from 3 to 6 hours on shitty game for just 1 dollar is almost as do it for free