Andromeda: Rebirth of Humanity

[quote][b]Warning: Third Party Account[/b] This game requires you to create a third party account ("Users are required to create an "Andromeda" in-game. Once made the can be logged in on both Steam and Android as well as iOS in the future.")... there's no valid reason for this in a PC game when SteamWorks is available. This is often done to harvest private data and profile you, with potential sale and transmission of your private data to third parties. The developers will probably argue that you can trust them, but if they were trustworthy they wouldn't demand you create a third party account. This represents a considerable risk to gamers due to the privacy and security implications of developers that wish to bypass Steam and harvest user data. Remember, sometimes if the product is free, YOU are the product.[/quote] [quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction]Warning: Microtransaction infested mobile app![/url][/b] This game is infested with a toxic mobile app style cash shop. You will be prompted to and expected to give money to the developers through this cash shop to buy in-game goods so you can play the game.[/quote] [quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-game_advertising][b]Warning: Contains In-Game Advertising[/b][/url] This game features prominently placed, potentially unskippable and disruptive real-world advertisements. What little gameplay experience this offers will be interrupted by commercial content.[/quote] "Andromeda: Rebirth of Humanity" is one of thousands of nasty mobile apps infesting the "free" section of Steam, but it's not really free. You might see "MMO RPG 4X Hybrid" and get your hopes up but it's immediately apparent this is yet another toxic P2W mobile cash grab dumped on Steam by a mobile dev desperate to scam PC gamers the same way mobile peasants fork over their cash mindlessly so they can win. In this case giving money to the developer lets your stuff build faster, which is an obvious advantage in a PvP crapfest mobile app. There's only a superficial game here. The game visuals and the game itself are incredibly shallow... think of them as the too-bright, colourful, thin plastic cabinet dress theme on a poker machine at the casino. That's basically what this is. So really, the mobile app "game" is just a veneer, a thin skin wrapped around a nasty, predatory mobile app cash shop. Putting that toxic mobile app monetisation aside... this is a mobile app. I didn't spend thousands on a gaming PC so I could pretend it's an iPhone, and I don't think you did either... this kind of mobile app has no place in your Steam library. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. In terms of public reception, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at just a dozen or so concurrent players, and now there's basically nobody playing it. Even though it's free (but it's not really). This is a dismal public reception, but it's easy to see why gamers rejected it. I decided not to dump my "Dead PvP" warning up top, but if you do try to play this you'll get murdered by both of the other players. Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? Definitely not... this is just an unethical cash grab. You deserve better than mobile apps on PC. Avoid at all costs. [quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says: [quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote] The developer both acknowledges that this is a mobile app (confirming that fact of my review without doubt), but seems upset about me pointing that out to gamers. See, it doesn't matter what order the developer launched this mobile app on which platform, the fact is that it's a mobile app, has all the qualities of a mobile app, was designed for the lowest common denominator of gaming platforms, and thus compares poorly to games designed for PC. This is useful for gamers to know, which is why I include this important information in my reviews whenever I catch a developer dumping mobile trash on Steam. But we must ask why the developer is so upset about being confronted with facts they themselves confirm. Guilty conscience perhaps? The developer makes the rather serious claim that my review is inaccurate/contains information which isn't factually evident. But this simply isn't true... the facts of my review can easily be verified with just a glance at this godawfully crap P2W mobile app. We know that if there was any glaring inaccuracy in my review the developer would have jumped on it and pointed it out right away... but they can't even cite one single example. Because [i]they know my review is accurate[/i]. They just don't like being presented with the facts. So they make up these false accusations of inaccuracy to soothe their ego. Anything but facing up to the truth. But why is this intellectual dishonesty good for gamers? It isn't. Indeed, the developer attacks this review for misinformation, but in his own breach of Valve guidelines he tells [b]outright lies.[/b] Let's break it down. The developer seems to think it's perfectly okay to harvest people's email addresses and other details about them and expects you to trust them with this private data... that's incredibly toxic, I already pointed out an ethical developer would just use Steamworks, but this guy went [b]out of his way[/b] to avoid any and all alternative, ethical approaches and is directly targeting personally identifying information... there's ZERO benign justfication for this, it's data harvesting. If this guy was ethical, he would use any of the privacy protecting alternatives out there but he deliberately isn't. The developer is quite simply lying. It's pure BS. More BS... the developer, thinking he's clever, explains that someone with 1000 hours will beat someone with 20 hours who spent $1000 (I doubt anyone gave this mobile app P2W scammer and private data harverster that much money for this garbage mobile app). But what he tacitly is saying and accidentally reveals is that this is an admission that someone with 20 hours and $1000 spent will win over someone with 20 hours and no money spent. [b][i]That's the textbook definition of P2W and the developer accidentally admitted it[/i][/b]. But, importantly, you can see how he tried to make it look like that wasn't the case... a direct, dishonest and unethical attempt to mislead gamers into thinking it's okay to hand over your PII to him, because this guy wants your email address. Disgusting, shady and dishonest. Now we can see all we needed to know about this toxic developer from his own admissions and easily disproven lies. Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this garbage P2W mobile app to anyone.