Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: intelligence Ji (ID:paperji), author: rain, Review: Qianli

The world of the game is very free, so we have to pay some price for freedom.

For example: copycat games.

Some time ago, on April 28, Steam launched a game called "Assassin's Creed: illusion", which is Ubisoft's New year masterpiece.

Discerning people can see that this is a copycat game, but the price of more than 200 still makes some players believe it.

These unruly players can't even find a .exe file after buying and downloading. The whole game package didn't surpass 100MB.

Besides, the cover of the game is generated by a Hollywood actor using AI.

Ubisoft, which is not "smart", makes things worse. According to French game magazine Jeux Video, the release schedule of the new book of the Assassin's Creed has been affected by the fake game and the protagonist of the new work has been adjusted.

As a PC game store that has been in operation for 20 years, numerous low-cost games have been successfully put on the shelves because of Steam's loose audit policy, and high-quality games have even become popular.

("four Masterpieces" on Steam)

It's easy to be a developer on Steam. The threshold is a deposit of $100 (a draw card for your mobile game).

As we all know, Steam designed a set of "like plus one" solution from the development side, giving you the illusion that you have it as soon as you enter the warehouse.

So some extremely lazy "developers" will sell games that do not even have .exe. This is the so-called "steam shell game".

When you become a Steam developer, you can apply for a game KEY for your "game". The KEY is stored and packed into a third-party sales gift bag at a very low price. Anyway, a considerable number of players won't play it even if they buy it, so they won't find themselves lonely at all.

"Shadow: Treachery cannot be tolerated" is a typical example. After a round of crowdfunding, it is sold on the shelves with only pictures and demo videos. After downloading, it is an empty bag.

But this "shell game" at least has some conscience, the price is only 11 yuan. In fact, it's okay to price your "shell game" at 100 yuan.

In order to improve the player's activity and willingness to spend, Steam platform will recommend some related or similar games according to the player's preference and behavior.

However, this recommendation mechanism is also used by some shell game developers, who will deliberately imitate the names, icons and descriptions of some well-known or popular games to attract players' attention and clicks. Once players buy these shell games, it is difficult for them to refund or complain.

That's why there's a refund policy within two hours.

What is more powerful than the operation on the platform is that game officials can also cheat on the platform.

In 2017, "Assassin's Creed: the Origin" received a lot of praise from the Water Army in Metacritic.

Perhaps Chat GPT has learned a lot from these empty words by making exactly the same evaluation.

The purpose of the Water Army is to improve the score and sales of the game. The Metacritic website does not take effective measures for this kind of brushing behavior, which leads to the distortion of the game score and the misleading of the players.

This kind of immoral marketing means also reflects the irresponsibility of some game media and platforms. "Assassin's Creed: the Origin" itself is a good game, do not need to rely on such a bad way to attract players.

"official" is not always "official".

Similar things have happened at Microsoft, such as this copycat "NBA 2K23". Fortunately, it was only cheated by the price of a game.

And copycat games can at least be played, imitating or plagiarizing the works of other well-known games can also be remembered. In the past, most of us played pirated + copycat games on FC, but at least it was a work that could be played. Even the "Black Cotton: Wu Neng" pull some time ago, at least it can be operated by hand.

But today, with the development of technology, as long as you want to do, our shanzhai ability is strong enough to fake the platform, coupled with Baidu's search advertising space, the fake platform is mixed up.

And these fake platforms, there is no shortage of "shell games" in the game KEY, which can not be seen or touched.

They use fake game websites to defraud players' accounts and passwords, then rent them to others at low prices, or sell them at high prices, and modify players' game data and settings without the player's knowledge.

In addition, these fake sites have a lot of hidden fees and rules, such as charging players' deposits and service fees, and limiting players' rental time and times. If the player has any questions or complaints, the site will refuse to solve or refund for various reasons, and even threaten and intimidate us.

The reason for the proliferation of counterfeit platforms in China is also related to the restriction of Steam in the domestic network.

After all, everyone knows steam, most of the time naked even Steam can not get into half a day, and then there is a mistake is the real platform we are familiar with.

The recent escape of Zelda: tears of the Kingdom has led pirates to attack genuine players in turn. It seems that those of us who spend money are big grudges, and pirates have become superior people.

Although it is said that usually the sound of cracking is greater than that of genuine ones, it is all because genuine games give bad experiences to players who spend money.

For example, those games that use DRM encryption technology to prevent piracy but damage the game experience.

But what did Link do wrong? What did Princess Zelda do wrong? What did Nintendo do wrong?

Running away is understandable, but setting up an archway for piracy and stealing is something I don't understand, which may only be understood by a group of imitators who bought "biochemical 4" for 0 yuan.

In the end, maybe electronic impotence and the existence of pirates have given the fake game market, but players eventually want to play games instead of spending money to see fake pictures that don't even run programs. "careless carelessness" is not an excuse for swindlers to cheat money reasonably.

Copycat games, fake platforms, pirated games, etc., are all kinds of businesses making profits by improper means, and the development of technology makes them more unscrupulous and meticulous.

We cannot be deceived by pirated and counterfeit merchants, let alone let them be both criminals and judges.

Besides, Zelda is really fun.

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