Infamous "shovelware" developer Silicon Echo Studios has been forced to shut down after Valve pulled over 200 of the company's titles from Steam.
After a series of user reviews called Echo Studio’s titles “asset flips,” (games with pre-bought assets copy and pasted on to simple gameplay mechanics), Valve has stepped in and removed all of them.
In an email to Polygon, a representative for Echo Studios claims that this take down was done without warning and that the studio's “reputation is destroyed beyond repair.” Silicon Echo claims that Valve told the studio is its games were consistently reported “primarily for practices that are deceptive to the customers,” and that they felt that this was not grounds for “complete account and business termination.”
The developer released a copy of the email it sent to Valve in which the studio claims these games, most of which were released in the last 3 months, were not released to deceive customers.
“We do not believe that we have been deceiving or lying to our and your customers in any way,” reads the email. “Everyone who has ever bought our games did it by their own choice and everybody knew exactly what they were buying.”
Silicon Echo also addressed the charges of asset flipping, saying, “People who are calling us asset flippers are correct only partially because we always made our own levels using the basic assets provided for us when we bought the asset kit.”
Valve also removed all games listen under developer Zonitron Productions, a company that YouTuber SidAlpha has alleged is a front for Silicon Echo itself. Echo Studio addressed this accusation in the email, as well, saying “Silicon Echo is an account completely separated from Zonitron Productions even though it is connected in some ways…”
In the email to Polygon, Silicon Echo explained that although these multiple developer names are something “people may call shady,” it was just for statistical analysis reasons.
"This situation has completely destroyed everything we have been working for in the past 3 years and we are forced to give up game development at this point for more that [sic] one reason," Silicon Echo said. “we wish we have been warned about this before, in that case we would focus on a different business plan of development.”
Valve recently announced efforts to combat review bombing on Steam, a practice in which a mass number of players post negative reviews in a small window.
John is a freelance writer for IGN UK with a love for all things stealthy, ginny and noisey. To set up a game of Spies vs Mercs or hear his less coherent ramblings, get him on Twitter.
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