We must stop to ask: is someone at Valve not overdoing it with the iron discipline?

Every time you review a game on Steam, the question asks if it was helpful (yes/no), if you found the review written by another user funny, or maybe you can give them an award. You can also flag it as incorrect, which may limit the user’s posting rights, but it seems that clicking yes under a negative review can also cause problems, as it has happened: a free-to-play multiplayer hack’n’slash/magic game Warlander had a negative review rated positive by 2,439 people; Valve penalized them!

Many of these games use an anti-cheat system. Warlander uses one. It’s Sentry Anti-Cheat, and not everyone is into it. The user Freedoms117’s review on Steam was hidden, and he was banned. But what did he write about? He says Sentry Anti-Cheat is suspicious because it runs even when the game is closed, has its icon on the tray, and sends data packets to Japan even after Warlander is closed. He explained how to uninstall it so there is no trace even in the registry. If we put it in the order of most helpful, his comes up first because 2,439 users have rated it positively, not to mention the hundreds of awards.

The moderator has restricted FREEDOMS117’s Steam account for 30 days for violating Steam’s terms of service: he can play games. Still, he can’t use Steam’s community features (writing and rating reviews, writing forum posts). According to Slashdot, the 2439 reviewers are not exempt either: they can’t rate other users’ reviews for 30 days. Steam Support responded: they removed the restrictions on everyone because a moderator misinterpreted what they said (they thought the original review was about avoiding the anti-cheat program): “Our moderators watch for content that describes how to cheat or describes how to tamper with anti-cheat systems. Those are against our rules, and it looks like that is what our moderation team incorrectly identified with this case, leading to the banned review. I agree with your evaluation that this review does not fit that criteria. Furthermore, the mod identified this review as potentially dangerous to other players due to some steps requiring registry edits. This led to the additional lock placed on your account and voter accounts. I can see that your review does not contain phishing links, attempts to scam or deceive players, or anything else that warrants a lock.”

They suggest different formatting of the review (detailed steps, highlighting that it is recommended at your own risk); a link in the review can point to this. Valve is also contacting the developers about it. According to the game’s publisher, Plaion (formerly Koch Media), there was a bug in Sentry Anti-Cheat that left the program’s icon in the tray after closing the game. It does not collect personal data or need to, and Plaion explained the uninstalling process. Still, Valve has gone too far!

Source: PCGamer