The gaming world has had it’s share of controversy over the years with the ethics of gaming journalism. Many giant websites have been rumored to get paid for writing positive reviews and covering a game. Of course this doesn’t just happen with major websites and studios.
Overland is an MMORPG being developed by Drago Entertainment that is currently available on Steam via Early Access. While looking at their Steam page, it would seem like the game is good receiving “mostly positive” reviews overall. However that might actually not be the case.
Omar Altay recently wrote an editorial on MMOs.com stating that the game has “hundreds” of fake paid reviews on Steam. While many be quick to doubt him, he was able to tell his experience in the game. Saying…
“I remember when I first played the game there were only a handful of reviews on Steam and the game was rated as “Mostly negative,” and rightfully so. I had to make 5 characters before I could finish the buggy tutorial, as they would get permanently stuck in one phase of the tutorial or another. Normally, something this game-breaking wouldn’t be considered acceptable even for an “early access” game, but what made this even worse is that Drago Entertainment (the developer) advertised the game’s early access as being one of the most “complete” early access titles on Steam.”
Altay also went on to say that lots of the reviews were done by people who have never written a review on Steam before. While this doesn’t prove anything, he did note that some of the reviews contain broken English as well as some having 0.0 hours on record. He even went as far as taken screenshots and posting them online…
Keep in mind that while there are screenshots, we still have to classify this as a rumor as there is a possibility these were translated from a different language Neither Valve or Drago Entertainment has commented on the issue at this moment.
