Valve bans Steam users creating fake Greenlight projects
Half-Life dev forced to remove scores of fake games from fledgling service.
Valve has begun banning Steam members who create fake projects on the company's just-launched Steam Greenlight service.
Anyone is able to add their game project to the platform, which seeks to find the next must-have Steam launches.
But that's entirely the problem: create a platform where anyone can submit anything, and quickly you'll have people testing its limits.
Those caught creating fake entries face a week's ban from Steam's community services. How effective this is can be judged by a quick scan of the Greenlight front page.
"I've already seen just in the last HOUR: two entries for Mass Effect 3, five various entries for Half Life 3, Left 4 Dead '3', Command and Conquer 1, every single Need for Speed game," one Steam user reported.
"That's not including patently offensive games that make fun of Africans, Indians, various pro/anti American games [and] a game about 9/11".
"Best WTC Plane Simulator" was just one of the games to be removed in the service's first full day of operation.
Greenlight initially launched with 30 projects. There are now around 590, although that number appears to fluctuate as more are added and troll entries are removed.
As of writing, the homepage is randomly showing a German Red Dead Redemption project page, and an entry almost-entirely comprised of one Russian teen's face.
This is why we can't have nice things.
