ill showWelcome back to the next installment of GreenWatch the ongoing article series that talks about big things going on in the Steam Community, possible scam games on Steam and Greenlight and fishy actions done by some developers.

The Rifle Club Vote Boosting and Possibly Scamming

Our first story is coming from a game that's currently on Steam Greenlight known as " Elemental Fight ", a game developed by 2 users called Viruz and Atomix. An announcement was posted up on a Steam Group called The Rifle Club that has over 5,000 members stating that they will be giving away $230.93 worth of game, games included in this giveaway included, but not limited to, Watch Dogs 2, Grand Theft Auto V and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However, this announcement states that in order to enter the giveaway, it states that you have to vote up a game on Greenlight, and the game that's linked goes to Elemental Fight. Not just that, but the announcement it self was made by Atomix, one of the developers of the game. Also, currently on Atomix's profile you'll find that he offers a number of different services, including boosting Steam group members, boosting votes for Greenlight games and boosting Twitch followers. Once members of the group completed the required actions required for the giveaway, they got sent to another group called Trade City that has over 10,000 members, and the people that wanted to enter the giveaway were sent to a separate thread to comment "done" in order to be eligible for the giveaway.

That is not the entire story, however. If you look at the second developer of the game, Prizm, posted an announcement on The Rifle Club stating that he wanted to open up a CounterStrike: Global Offensive gambling site and that he's seeking sponsorship for the project and he's offering the sponsorship $200-500 a week. Also, a quick glance at Prism's profile, will show that he has a VAC ban that was issued just recently. Further research into the ban including the help of looking on the site SteamRep will show that he is marked a scammer for being "Staff of a fake CS:GO gambling site" along with the report, SteamRep also supplied a link to a forum where the matter of the user's questionable actions were discussed.

One additional thing that's peculiar about this whole situation is that this was first talked about in a discussion on a group called "Giveaway Club" which has over 39,000 members by the owner, a user called Archmeton. What's peculiar about this is that Giveaway Club has a moderator called CC Creative and CC Creative, as well as being a moderator for Giveaway Club is actually an administrator over at The Rifle Club.

Developer kicked off of Steam

We (Valve) have identified suspicious behavior involving multiple Steam accounts controlled by the developer of this game, Vasily Bulygin. These accounts were used to exploit the Community Marketplace and post positive reviews for his own games. For these reasons, we are ending our business relationship with Vasily Bulygin and removing his games from sale. If you have previously purchased this game, it will remain accessible in your Steam library

Developer Threatens to Sue Users Over Negative Comments

Steam User Threatens to Sue Valve Over a "False" VAC Ban

All VAC bans are permanent - Valve has a zero-tolerance policy for cheating and will not lift VAC bans under any circumstances.

On the 7th January 2017, 3 games were removed from the Steam Store, these games in question were called "atorb", "Sekwere" and "Bollo". The thing that these 3 games had in common were that they were all developed by a developer on Steam called "Vasily Bulygin" also known under his alias on Steam Greenlight "btr.im." All 3 of his games on Steam were taken down yesterday, 7th January, as well as all the games that he had on the Steam Greenlight program. In regards to the games being removed, Valve were quick to release a statement, coming from Valve representative Alden Kroll stating:There's a game on Steam Greenlight currently pending approval from the community to be sold on Steam called " And It's Gonna Be Great ." The game has received a mixed reception from Greenlight browsers, some liking the setup of the game and gameplay, but some criticizing the use of political figures in the game. However, one of the developers of the game, Joshci27, seems to be taking people talking negatively about him and his company a step further and has gone and threatened multiple users with lawsuits for defaming him and his company publically. A user has collated a number of comments made by the developer of him threatening users with lawsuits for insulting him, claiming that one of the lawsuits is in the process of being filed and the developer even deleting comments that weren't even insulting anyone in particular.The final story is one that's currently filled with confusion and questions. A discussion forum was opened by Steam User "PsiClone" stating that he had received a VAC ban for actions committed in a game that he hadn't even played and he doesn't even own. Further comments made by the indicate that he is a lawyer and that if the right procedures were not done by Valve to resolve the VAC ban, then the user may actually be suing Valve. A Valve moderator responded to the user's claims by locking the discussion and stating:Along with that response, the Steam Moderator left links to parts of the site where further information about VAC bans could be found.

We have attempted to contact PsiClone but we have not received any response at this time.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this week's installment of GreenWatch and thanks for the support that has been pushed forward for the series and your kind words that I've been receiving from some people.