Some of the user reviews for ARK: Scorched Earth seem to be showing some odd behavior. There are a number of positive reviews filed for the game that don’t quite add up, including plenty of accounts that no longer have the game in their library.
I was informed by a concerned reader that something was off with some of the reviews for ARK: Scorched Earth, linking to a number of imgur posts showing that some of the accounts have given the newest entry in the ARK series a positive score but now no longer have the game in their library or put in less than an hour’s worth of time before giving the game a thumbs up while shortly thereafter removing it from their profile.
While the images looked compelling enough, if you check the actual positive reviews for ARK: Scorched Earth you’ll find similar inconsistencies. For instance, this review from evell, who has 1.2 hours on record for ARK: Scorched Earth, giving the game a thumbs up but hasn’t actually played the game in the last two weeks, and it’s no longer in evell’s library.
Now some of you might think that maybe they just bought the game, played it before it released to the public for 1.2 hours, logged in a review with a thumbs up and then refunded the game. While that might sound plausible, the main problem is that evell didn’t buy the game. They received it for free, according to the Steam user review. There was nothing to refund.
Then there are some accounts like AppleSeed, which seems fine at first, having 25 products in their library and more than 150 hours on record in ARK: Survival Evolved. Yet somehow they have a level 0 Steam profile.
The same thing applies to Steam users Keesi and Danerion, the first of whom has 2.5k hours in ARK and owns 42 products on Steam but has a level 0 account. Danerion has more than 700 hours in ARK and 21 products in their library. The profiles for both Keesi and Danerion are private.
[Update: Some people are saying that making the profiles private automatically sets the Steam profile level to 0.]
Still, the private accounts can at least be given some leniency since it’s not made clear if they still have the game in their inventory. For cases like DeadricPrince and PinGameplay HD, they have reviews on hand for ARK: Scorched Earth but don’t appear to have the game in their libraries at all.
The thing is, spotting out these reviews where they appear to be made by bots isn’t so simple. Some of them look like standard reviews from typical Steam users — some of which may not have the best grasp on the English language. Others are a little easier to spot with the product not being in their inventory, even though they received a copy for free.
These suspiciously positive reviews with the odd activity from its users is not a common thing. These reviews pop up infrequently and are sprinkled about the review section for ARK: Scorched Earth. There are a lot of reviews from a lot of users coming in, so it’s not easy to always spot them out. Even still, some readers are concerned that some of the positive reviews might be getting padded by bots.
