Otherland, an early access buy to play MMORPG, based on the Tad Williams novels, is using paid fake reviews to spur interest for their game on Steam. I remember when I first played the game there were only a handful of reviews on Steam and the game was rated as "Mostly negative," and rightfully so. I had to make 5 characters before I could finish the buggy tutorial, as they would get permanently stuck in one phase of the tutorial or another. Normally, something this game-breaking wouldn't be considered acceptable even for an "early access" game, but what made this even worse is that Drago Entertainment (the developer) advertised the game's early access as being one of the most "complete" early access titles on Steam. After returning to the game's Steam page recently I was shocked to see the game's user reviews marked as "mostly positive." This couldn't be possible. Did these users play the same game I did?

Well it turns out that most of these user reviews are without a shred of a doubt fake. It doesn't take a genius to realize these reviews are fake as most of the positive reviews are left by users with "0.0 hours on record," and users that left no other reviews on Steam. What's funny is that ALL of these fake positive reviews are in completely broken nonsensical English. Reading some of these fake positive reviews is downright hilarious. I mean take a look at this one:

I don't even know where to begin with this review. Apparently Mr. AnsbroNobel8, who actually has 3 hours on record, is no "representation addict." I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I'm sure it's a very serious addiction! This esteemed Steam User also favors decent story driven RPGs with great graphics and poor gameplay. If a game has great visuals AND good gameplay, it's not a game for AnsbroNobel8! He's all about that shitty gameplay apparently, which actually describes Otherland quite well. Moving on, we have another excellent review:

This review was obviously written to try and dispel some of the genuine concerns ACTUAL players had with the game, namely the game breaking bugs. Apparently if you're looking for a game to "smolder" hours on, Otherland is the game for you!

This review by Andrea Theissen is more representative of the hundreds of fake reviews on the game's Steam Page. They're typically written in nonsensical English by users with no other reviews associated with their Steam accounts. Check out the game's Steam page if you want to see more of Otherland's fake reviews.

It's clear that the folks behind Otherland are disappointed with the game's reception on Steam and are trying to boost sales in an incredibly shady way. As of this writing, the game only has 18 players online with a 30-day average of 8.2. The game is clearly a commercial flop and Drago Entertainment is trying anything and everything to get people to try the game. I mean, if you're going to try to trick your customers into buying your game you might as well spend a little bit more and get your fake reviews written by native English speakers. As is, these fake reviews are embarrassing for Drago Entertainment and won't fool anyone who spends a couple of minutes checking out the reviews. More casual users might be roped into buying the game if they only look at the "mostly positive" score on the game's Steam page, which is unfortunate as the game is pretty terrible.

This kind of deceptive marketing / manipulation of user reviews shouldn't be allowed. Steam needs to take action and take these downs, as no one should be tricked into buying this game. I think Steam should just boot this game off the platform for trying to trick their customers, but that's just my opinion. What do you think? Do you know any other games that use paid reviews on Steam to boost their sales?

Update: On the game's Steam Discussion forum, a developer commented:

Are they serious? Are they claiming that the users they gave free keys to left these nonsensical "reviews"? This isn't a one/two review thing, there are over a HUNDRED of these obviously fake reviews all blindly praising the game IN BROKEN ENGLISH. I'm not buying their story. Did they only give beta keys to people who spoke broken English? I think they got caught and came up with a terrible excuse. It's possible that a couple of individuals at the developer's office thought this was a good idea and acted on their own, but the payment had to be approved. People don't leave fake reviews for free.