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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
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Games
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Publicity stunt.
They got tons of publicity by being banned from steam. They harnessed it as much as possible which spawned the infamous “one of the best indie game developers” title in some news articles. Being banned from two major game stores brings a lot of eyes on their game. And even with a bright spotlight lightning up their game - still barely anyone is talking about it. My theory is - game is below average at best and can be barely called an art piece in gaming industry. (based on what I know about the game and on one youtube playthrough)
Popularity matters cause it is a good metric to measure sales. If game is good and sells well - people will talk. People are barely talking about this game. Sales are probably very low. But also, what would sales be if it wouldn't be banned of steam? I bet they would barely exist.
It would be an extremely risky strategy. The studio's whole portfolio are offbeat shortforms (indeed one of the higher profile indie devs) and I don't think getting banned from Steam and losing sales there was something they anticipated. Using this for publicity is plan B for damage control, never has been plan A.
The steam ban was ages ago, the news was recent. They decided to go loud about the steam ban as they released, its clearly pr. I dont think they got banned intentionally but the difference is a little academic when you cry this loudly about it.
Yes, as I said, plan B. Do you expect the studio to say "ok fuck it, let's close up" when they projected a huge loss of sales after Steam denied their release?
(1) The devs trying to make the best out of a bad situation and marketing their game in a difficult situation is, like, not their fault? If you have a product, you want to sell it. Especially if you are an indie dev who desperately needs as much marketing as possible, and ESPECIALLY if you get banned from the largest videogame storefront on the planet because of Valve's shitty review policies. Calling this "publicity stunt" is very narrow-minded.
(2) Some random news article calling them "one of the best indie game developers" is, again, not their fault. First of all, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and secondly, the devs are not out there brainwashing people to like their game. If someone liked their game enough to consider them a GOTY contender, good for them. My 2018 GOTY was CrossCode despite other big titles releasing that same year (MH World, RDR2, Spiderman, Celeste, God of War just to name a few), is it the dev's fault?
(3) You calling it "barely an art piece" means shit all. It's not up to you (or anyone) to decide what's art and what's not. This is blatant censorship, but I guess that's alright as long as it's not something you like?
(4) The problem is not that they would've sold fewer copies had they be available on Steam; the problem is that they weren't allowed a chance to prove themselves to begin with, because of the shitty review policies by Valve who adamantly refuses to review any game twice (despite them having more than enough money to do so) when they find something they deem "unacceptable", according to their nebulous metrics. Somehow Sex with Hitler is allowed to be sold on their platform, and so are many Japanese hentai games featuring questionably-legal child-like characters, but this one isn't? Why is that?