Shitlisting Service Announcements

Not only did they fùck up every step of the way making this game, they also dropped all subtlety injecting it with Sweet Baby Inc levels of politics:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Coeco/recommended/2694490/

About 2 weeks ago, Valve got threatened by a left-wing US Senator:

https://www.ign.com/articles/us-senator-writes-to-valve-boss-gabe-newell-demanding-crackdown-on-hateful-accounts-and-rhetoric-on-steam

They accuse Steam of harboring "Extremism/Nazis/Antisemitism" and refer to incredibly dumb shìt like people's profile pictures and dead meme groups with 1-5 people in them from 2004~.

I initially thought this would never get taken seriously as it got collectively laughed and ridiculed by the entire internet but Valve being Valve has decided to begin acting on it out of proportion, including banning the word "shìt" from private groups regardless of Steam account profanity settings:

https://files.catbox.moe/r39yhf.png

Naturally with this group name and covering injected politics, i'm on the chopping block. I asked for a name change and got immediately refused:

https://files.catbox.moe/y954us.png

---

TL;DR: Shìtlisting Service needs a new home. I'd like to upgrade to doing full-sized video reviews of games on Youtube and maybe even have a dedicated website but i currently lack the funds to accomplish this.

For those that would like to help this transition, you can ❤️𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞❤️[ko-fi.com]

For everyone else, i will keep curating games but don't be surprised if this group suddenly vanishes.

Back in August, Valve made an announcement that they were implementing a system that will re-sort user reviews on the store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110?emclan=103582791457287600&emgid=4326355263805583415

Now besides Valve blatantly lying that this system is "new" as it saw it's first attempted implementation under the same name back in 2017-2018:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/2666556941788470579

https://files.catbox.moe/vsw1r9.png

It was ultimately shelved from the backlash it caused. Namely: All it did was hide negative reviews. What does this supposed new version do?

https://i.imgur.com/H7ACM2d.gif

https://i.imgur.com/ldmq1sy.gif

The exact same thing.

This system is solely designed to try and boost game sales by hiding criticism. I recommend everyone to turn this pile of trash off as you browse user reviews while you can before it gets integrated into Steam with no off button.

Denuvo has recently begun a massive PR campaign trying to misinform people into oblivion and scorn gamers for ever giving them critique in response to games being ruined by their DRM:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/denuvo-respond-to-their-rep-for-tanking-games-im-a-gamer-myself-and-therefore-i-know-what-im-talking-about

To help push this load of bullshìt down people's throats, they linked this science article:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875952124002532

For whatever reason, several news outlets have jumped on this PR train (clearly not bothering to read the study) and i'm now violently going to debunk it. This is going to be a long, largely technical breakdown of all the presented information so if that's not your cup of tea, run away now.

---

This paper shoots itself in the foot.. A LOT.

a) (Section 1): Admits that "developing" countries, AKA the extremely poor ones (such as Venezuela, Pakistan and Vietnam) are by far the biggest piraters by citing an 11 year old IP commission report. Not only do citizens of these countries not have the income to purchase games (that are vehemently expensive for them) but they literally don't have the legal venues to purchase them to begin with due to their local currencies not being accepted, making their sales displacement 0. No such adjustment is made for their data.

b) (Section 1): Writes long sections that are completely unsupported by sources and honestly just comes off as guess-filled babbling. In it, they admit that DRM wrecks performance (validated in DenuvoTruth & elsewhere) and more interestingly: "Introduces bugs" which is patently false. Games with & without Denuvo has been put under a microscope (which is why we know it wrecks performance) and there's never been any evidence or reports of "bugs/glitches" due to Denuvo that we have been able to see.

c) (Section 2): Sources 7 different studies that show "sharing of copyrighted works lead to an increase in legitimate demand" but tries to massively downplay them, calling them extremely circumstantial despite being made in similar fashion to all other references used in this article.

d) (Section 2): Cites a study saying that "DRM can improve profitability as long as it's not harmful to customers or costly to developers", two check boxes Denuvo fills which they tenatively agree unspecifically "can happen" in section 1, as discussed in b) above but also later directly confirm that Denuvo does cause problems in reference (53).

e) (Section 3): Cites VMProtect as a "main competitor" to Denuvo when Denuvo is pretty much always used in tandem with VMProtect as they are also based on their technology (by pirating it), something you can quickly find out by doing minutes of research:

https://torrentfreak.com/denuvo-accused-of-using-unlicensed-software-to-protect-it-anti-piracy-tool-170605/ & https://imgur.com/yE7WXsE

---

Back in 2014, the website MEGA was called Megaupload. Like all file sharing websites, it saw some piracy going on and when it got shut down, it got a lot of publicity. The study says:

"It led to large positive effect on digital movie sales and box office revenues of high-profile works but not on lesser-known works."

Linking this study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167718716301527

Which in actuality says:

"We find that box office revenues of a majority of movies that have been available on Megaupload do not increase in response to the shutdown. Indeed, the average effect is negative."

A complete twisting of facts that i can only describe as an attempt of intentional deception.

---

The study starts with a bunch of quotes from publishers with no data or evidence whatsoever to back it up, either from them or said publishers. They state in (Section 2):

"Publishers’ concern with digital piracy is empirically valid. More recent work has typically found that piracy does typically displace sales".

Following that, they link actual source studies. Unfortunately for them, they're all shìt. i'll dissect 5 quickly:

https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.utdallas.edu/dist/8/1090/files/2021/04/effect_music_download.pdf

a): Extremely old (2006). Different industry (music industry). The entire data set is gathered from mail-in surveys with no checks if what was submitted is true or not. The survey includes data from people below the age of 18 who do not have jobs &/ credit cards to possibly make legal online (or even retail) purchases. The study openly admit that peer-to-peer usage increases the probability of purchasing music in many cases while also admitting that the industry has been downtrending at a whole and still tries to crudely make displacement guesses. A whole lot of empty, vague guesswork using poorly fabricated stand-ins of measurement in the absence of hard data.

-----

https://personal.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/cities6f.pdf

b): Extremely old (2007). Different industry (music industry). Extreme generalization. They have no actual data to pull from so they try to base an entire study on something they phrase as "internet penetration", AKA they looked at internet usage in cities and assume higher internet usage means people are pirating shìt. It's laughable and should be discredited entirely.

-----

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167624510000260

c): Extremely old (2010). Openly admit that most of the downloaded material is things people would not have bought either way. Ironically the paper is very paywalled but he makes the same mistake of having patently crooked generalization and has been debunked by articles like this one.[users.wfu.edu]

-----

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2132153

d): Fairly old (2012). Not really a study in of itself but rather an overview of other studies, no idea why this was even sourced to try and legitimize their point, but i digress. Different industry (music industry). Paper openly calls what they're doing in the original study (AKA trying to guesstimate quantity sold data, stupidly based on things like user reviews) to be naive. Openly admit (like so many other studies) that they don't have a squat of actual accurate data.

-----

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016762451730152X

e): Openly discredits all the prior studies. Wrong industry (Movies). Includes data from 14-17 year olds that lack money/credit cards to make legal purchases. Discredits their own hackjob methods of measurements (extremely crude n vague guesswork displacement rates and some fairyland magic of "every pirated movie/music is 0.42 of a sale" rates. No methods of verifying any of the submitted data being accurate from the questionnaire.

-----

TL;DR: Every single one of these sourced studies are all based on guesses that are in turn, based on more guesses, often combined with horribly wrong assumptions and home-cooked math, inherently having MASSIVE margins of errors while also only coming up with displacement percentages that can be as low as 2%. Therefore, the statement that it's "empirically valid" is complete and utter horseshìt. Especially the part where they say they are "recent" which is just not the case.

---

I will be going over the methods and snorted pixie dust they did to get this data:

a) (Section 4.1):

"A game that is initially sold at a high price is hypothesized to more likely be seen as a high-value target for cracking groups." & "Attention and quality. The higher the aggregate review score, the more likely the pirating."

Completely asinine hypotheses trying to paint software as some kind of treasure chest. The primary targets for cracking groups is a mix between public requests &/ demand from pirate communities and how popular a title is in general. This is very easily confirmed by cross-referencing the activity of torrents vs how popular something is via google trends/twitch views, etc.

Aggregate sites have never been less trusted than in the last couple of years for some very good reasons. If something has a really dodgy score, that INCREASES the chance of someone pirating any given title in order to test it, not the other way around.

They follow all this up by immediately contradicting their own constructed hypotheses by bringing up how even extremely obscure games get routinely cracked and instead of fixing their methods, they settle for calling them "random exogenous variations".


b) (Section 5.1):

"I propose that the volume of user reviews over time reflect the volume of sales."

Despite admittance that this entire study is now officially not based on any actual sales data, drawing the assumption that review = sale is patently false. Engagements vary WILDLY on whether or not someone takes the time out of their day to write a full-fledged review for a game which can range from drama (or lack thereof) surrounding it, the hype leading up to release, the price & length of the game, the amount of clout/attention it has amassed, the fanbase from prequels, how easy it is to conjure up a sh*tpost depending on what's in it, etc.

c) (Section 5.1)

"Narrative single-player video games are similar to, say, movies insofar as there is a clear-cut beginning and a clear-cut end, and most people will not immediately begin again after finishing (just like how few people watch the same movie every day). And while it is true that many people will eventually watch a good movie a second or third time (or more), there is typically a delay between watching the movie again. Similar logic holds for a single-player video game. Therefore if one looks at an appropriate interval of time, one can think of active players on a given date as new players who reflect new sales."

This just made me laugh. Games ARE NOT MOVIES. Titles have VASTLY different playabilities with new game +, different strategies & characters & builds to try, different social & narrative choices to make (The Walking Dead), collecting every easter egg / getting 100% achievements, etc. The people that play them are also vastly vary.

---

The rest of the paper goes over the crooked testing methodology used which is filled with nothing but identical hypothetical piss-in-the-wind stuff like only tracking games for 12 weeks, artificially inflating numbers due to the prior admitted 'most sales around release' and artificially deflating the potential gains from word-of-mouth and so on.

With the news article, Denuvo themselves now also openly admit that any game who even touches their scam DRM gets their reputation completely ruined and public good-will buried.[i.imgur.com]

For the sake of the scientific community, i really hope this paper gets discredited ASAP.

As always, stay informed:

https://denuvotruth.blogspot.com/2023/04/causes-games-to-expire.html

https://i.imgur.com/kbu7qUf.png

Never EVER trust a single word that comes out of an outlet. Witnessing even a fraction of the amount of còck these people suck in order to get bribes and privileges will make your head spin.

While user reviews are better, they're still subject to similar economical & emotional & political biases while also being manipulated by Valve.[valvetruth.blogspot.com]

A good practice is to subtract about 30% to get the real review score of any given game when you're unable or unwilling to test/research it yourself but unfortunately this will only get worse in the future with AI on the rise. Bot review bombing is just around the corner, if not already here.

The game has had a sudden surge of a wide amount of people claiming it's now not complete ♥♥♥♥ unlike at release, including a very large amount of youtubers most likely paid by Bethesda. It is in fact still complete ♥♥♥♥:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Coeco/recommended/1151340/

In case anyone still wasn't convinced about their motives and end goals:

https://thatparkplace.com/sweet-baby-inc-employee-admits-goal-is-burning-the-games-industry-to-the-ground/

BONUS:

A new law has just been enacted in California forcing developers/publishers that make games with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ always-online requirements to put clear notices that you're buying a LICENSE and not a game copy:

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/new-california-law-inspired-by-ubisoft-and-sony-requires-retailers-to-warn-consumers-that-the-digital-games-they-buy-can-be-taken-away-at-any-time/

Valve just posted the news Here.

They redacted what they did 12 years ago, copying Microsoft, forcing customers to go through arbitration (mini 1v1 "courts" managed by inexpensive third parties) instead of class-action lawsuits (groups of people suing a single entity and splitting the costs between themselves).

---

The reason it's being redacted is because they got majorly outplayed by a lawfirm called Zaiger that abused this condition of theirs and made class-action lawsuits consisting of arbitrations which is costing Valve a pretty penny.[www.econotimes.com]

It was not done as a kindness or legal benefit to Steam users as so many fanboys have begun misinforming others about. It's purely for their own benefit following a legal defense strategy that has collapsed like a failed Soufflé and having more Steam users hold them accountable for their MANY counts of greedy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.[valvetruth.blogspot.com]

My god is this game a hot bag of shìt that's chasing a 7+ year old dead trend.

---

I have over 8000+ hours in other MOBA's (Paragon, Predecessor, Battleborn, Smite, Dota, Paladins, etc which this game is copying) and i can confidently say that this game needs to be reworked from the ground up. Every character moves around like they got wheels under their shoes and a huge log taped to their back. It feels absolutely awful, especially for a shooter with almost exclusively hitscan weaponry.

For some reason, they decided to give every single gun a magazine capacity of 20-30 and a reload time of like 4-5 seconds which turns most fights into people awkwardly staring at each other as they wait for a circle to fill up. This wouldn't be so bad if every hero wasn't a massive bullet sponge that can get hundreds after hundreds of more health and even drastic 20-60% damage reductions on the cheap. Literally half of the "WEAPON" upgrades come with additional survivability.

In the midst of this sludge-fest, everyone gets 3-4 charges of sudden rocket boots dashes that can be used (even mid-air) to leap 20 feet in any direction with no cooldown for consecutive use. Aside from making the game feel inconsistent as fùck, it also completely hard-counters more than half of the abilities in the game where there's a channel or delayed area target such as grenades.

Mo & Krill digging towards you? Just dodge. Did someone throw a grenade? Dodge. Hooked by Bebop? Dodge back to where you were instantly. Did someone like Haze or Infernus pop their ult? Dodge. Mind you, this can all be done consecutively since you get multiple charges of this shìt (for some reason) with no investment needed.

It's clear that whoever designed this game has no fùcking idea what they're doing. Speaking of:

---

This is a 6v6 game with 4 lanes of minions. Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds. Two lanes are 2v2 and two are 1v1. In my hours playing this game, there are literally never any actual teamfights taking place (except when defending/attacking the ♥♥♥ orbs at the end) since there is such an overwhelming emphasis on laning spread out across the entire map... Which ends up being very awkward since half the roster includes heroes that are very heavily support-oriented. If you don't play a character that's good at dueling, chances are you're completely screwed.

Valve also had the really funny idea to NOT allow you to play who you want by forcing everyone to pick at least 3 heroes before queuing. This matchmaking is absolutely fùcking atrocious and encourages people to troll/go AFK/abandon the game in order to play the hero they actually want to fùcking play.

Once you DO begin playing the game, you're met by another kick in the balls as you're granted no starting funds whatsoever. Did you get a really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ match-up and need to buy something that might help you survive your lane? Tough luck, àsshole.

When any given lane progresses further towards the enemy base, the developers (for some god forsaken reason) decided it'd be a really good idea to give the winning team an additional snowballing advantage by allowing them to actively fast-travel using the ziplines riiiight up to the enemy tower. Why? I don't know.

The biggest personal annoyance of mine is how there's several melee/up-in-your-face heroes in this game and no character collision. "What's wrong with that?" I hear you ask. Well! It just so happens that it's a third person game and accordingly, your camera is WAAAAY to the right of your shoulder. This means that someone can step inside of you (or in general be just really close) and you will physically not be able to shoot them. Feel free to test this with a friend. It's rètarded.

---

It's America in 1920-1930 except there's gargoyles, giant molerats, high-tech robots, demons, purple elves, sentient goo, 15 flavors of random minorities and a bunch of other ♥♥♥♥. It's painfully obvious that this game has a severe identity crisis and it's probably going to get a lot worse in the future.

Purely from a visual perspective, the game looks like ♥♥♥♥. Every color is washed out to death except random bits of graffiti that looks like LED's in comparison. Wherever you look up, there's the overbearing ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ziplines that spiderweb across the town seemingly with no thought put into them as they awkwardly zig and zag around buildings. Any semblance of consistent architecture is thrown out the windows by random statues depicting skeletons with guns, birds, gargoyles, etc. All shadows are vague, blurry smears and the list goes on.

---

Valve are confirmed partners with them and it explains a LOT of the out-of-place character design choices:

https://i.imgur.com/t5PSPVW.png

Including already having a character with "muh pronouns":

https://deadlocked.wiki/Pocket

You can read as to why this is bad here:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Slistingservice/discussions/0/4307201374342406741/

It seems someone at Valve got their feelings hurt a bit too much from the last announcement post:

https://i.imgur.com/h8zF3Mi.png

This is a reminder to everyone that if you are going to critique Valve or any of their products in any capacity, do so anonymously and not on your main account. The entire company is today seemingly run by butt-hurt manchildren and they WILL engage in discriminatory moderation and abuse of power.