A pro-consumer group on Steam named Dissenters Anonymous is a public group formed for the purpose of protecting gamers from shady, fraudulent or suspicious Early Access games that may be in it just for the cash.

The group recently started getting active in a serious way, hoping to help curb the flood of poorly made Early Access games – some of which may not have any plans on finishing up or heading into a full release – and to work as a curator for those Early Access games. Essentially the curation group are games you should stay away from in Early Access, a “Do Not Buy List” if you will. The tagline for the group is: Customer Protection Group for Early Access Abuse.

The group is completely open to the public and they have very basic rules, mostly not to attack other members and not to troll. On the group’s main page they describe their function and purpose as such…

“ Allow me to explain our purpose. We here at DA are a “consumer support group” specializing in Steam Early Access titles. The idea is to be something of a watchdog for games abusing the Early Access program, and also to push for reforms on games that are clearly abusing the system. We’re also here for you to vent your frustrations to a sympathetic ear, without the worry of a banhammer being swung in your direction.”

This is a great group concept. A lot of gaming websites have been locking down and shutting down discussion that doesn’t always meet with the site runner’s own sociopolitical bias. In turns into people either adopting that bias just to fit in, or leaving the community to find somewhere else to hang out with fellow gamers.

The idea of just letting gamers vent is a very important facet of the group’s function because of how much censorship goes on these days.

They also have a Steam curation page where they recommend games in Early Access worth supporting.

With the nascence of Early Access there have been some success stories and there have been some horror stories as well. The Stomping Land comes to mind, which was a very promising game but ended up getting abandoned by the developers and pulled from the Steam store, as reported by What’s Your Tag.

Another example includes a promising sandbox game that ran out of funding; this past June, Hidden Path Entertainment’s Windborne was also pulled from Steam Early Access and a lot of fans were left with a bitter taste in their mouth. Venture Beat reported on how some gamers who spent up to $85 were out of coin and cash on an Early Access title that wouldn’t be able to deliver what was promised.

It’s part of the risk of paying for something on Early Access and having a small inkling in the back of your mind telling you that it may not ever be finished.

With Dissenters Anonymous they encourage group members to ask, question and verify the legitimacy of Early Access titles. There’s even a thread on there right now discussing how one developer perma-banned a user and deleted a thread due to him questioning their policies in regards to the End User License Agreement. You can check out the thread right here.

If you feel as if Steam needs better policing and quality control over Early Access games, feel free to check out the Dissenter Anonymous group, which will hopefully continue to watch dog over Early Access titles the way #GamerGate watches over games journalism corruption.

[Update 10/30/2015: Made a correction to the article regarding the role of the curator group]