Steam Issues Refund for Earth: Year 2066

Perhaps a classic case of just plain false advertising, Steam has finally taken down the shoddy, potentially copyright infringing game Earth: Year 2066 and offered buyers a full refund.

Released on Steam Early Access a few weeks ago for$19.99, Earth was billed as a first-person shooter in a post-apocalyptic landscape by developer Muxwell, and became available via Steam Greenlight, which allows community members to vote on games they'd like to see in the store from indie and first-time developers. Those who had the misfortune of paying for early access however quickly found the game to be of appallingly bad quality--running the gamut from shuddery camera to poor textures and broken game mechanics--and took to the comments section in droves to voice their complaints. Muxwell quickly cracked down on this however, deleting or locking negative comments and later referring to upset players as "trolls and provokers." 

It also quickly became clear that some of Earth's promotional art had actually been plagiarised via a Google Image search from artist James Chadderton's work depicting a post-apocalyptic Manchester (original pictured above). Muxwell then claimed to have fired whoever was responsible for the plagiarism and that a new trailer was in the works. Community members then uncovered Muxwell (whose former Steam name was Aaron Bishop) as the entity behind the infamous Lords of the Uberdark kickstarter, a project that promised Minecraft-style gameplay that seemed to hit roadblock after roadblock as soon as it was funded for $22,000. 

Muxwell continued to strike back as community members became increasingly agitated, before finally deleting all comments on Earth's forums, which quickly began to fill up with negative commentary once more. Along with getting friends to post positive reviews in a vain attempt to counter these complaints, it seems like Muxwell pulled every bad trick in the book on Steam community members.

There is a happy ending, however, as Steam finally stepped in today to remove the game for false advertising and began issuing refunds to players. Despite the dubious light this incident casts on the Steam Greenlight program and its lack of quality control, Valve stands by it, instead saying the fault lies with the developers for being dishonest.