Emoji Evolution is a puzzle game on Steam about combining strange symbols. Or at least it was: Valve recently removed it from the store and banned its creator’s developer account after apparently figuring out how they were exploring the Steam layout try to deceive people in playing the game.
“Valve banned my developer account due to ‘revision manipulations,” Emoji Evolution very positive developer wrote on Twitter last Friday. “I totally disagree with this accusation.” Very positive looks harmless as a name, but in the context of the Steam store pages, it ended up being easily confused with a real assessment of Steam’s rating of “Very Positive”. The developer also made sure that the name matched the font and color of Valve’s official ratings. It was a cute joke and a funny riff about the ways developers try to play the Steam market.
At least I thought so. Valve? Not a lot. At the an interview ended in Vice with Patrick Klepek, who was one of the first people to discover the trick, Very Positive originally said that she didn’t think it would be a problem. “Valve fully understands how insignificant this trick is,” they said. “It is more important to have a famous brand like Obsidian there.” Apparently no.
Originally born out of a conversation about the nature of online emojis and their ongoing transformation and proliferation, Emoji Evolution it ended up being an interesting piece of art highlighting some of the absurdities and shortcomings of Steam. It remains to be seen whether he will return or inspire other small developers to try to take advantage of Steam’s laissez faire approach to curation.
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“I played a really bad game – that’s the only thing I’m guilty of,” says Very Positive’s latest tweet. “If making horrible games is not allowed on Steam, why haven’t they suspended their CDPR account yet?”