If the first thing you see on a game’s Steam page is the composite rating rating, you can take a closer look at the rating. One Steam developer has discovered that the “developer” and “publisher” fields can easily be presented as rating points if your studio’s name is “Very Positive”.
The strange developer name is on the GameDiscoverCo newsletter and later tweeted by Patrick Klepek, with a screenshot showing the game Emoji Evolution by developer Very Positive.
While the actual game has mixed recent reviews and mostly positive overall reviews, you may be misled into seeing ‘Very Positive’ ratings for both at a glance. “Emoji Evolution is a new look at the alchemy game where you have to combine different elements to find a new one,” reads the description. “Search all recipes and solve the most important dilemma of mankind.”
It seems to be the only game developed or published by Very Positive, and it does not appear that any other studios have been categorized on the daring strategy – no one uses the more impressive “Overwelmingly Positive” rating as a developer name, for example.
It will be interesting to see if Steam thinks this nasty solution is worth doing, whether it means taking individual action against developer Very Positive or simply the way developers’ names are displayed , to change. Since this trick does not change the way games are arranged or displayed from the store page, it probably does not give Emoji Evolution too much of an unfair advantage.
