Ballistic Machines

[quote][b]Warning: Broken Game![/b] This game has design/implementation defects that will render this unplayable for many gamers. The developer "broke" the game file repository, it doesn't contain the game executable, so the game cannot be launched or played. The developer continues to sell keys to this game on Steam and through third party sites in a deliberate attempt to scam gamers.[/quote] There's not much to say about this because it's broken, we can infer from the screenshots it was some kind of attempt at making a third person shooter, but now, it's just a scam. Selling something that doesn't work, on purpose, is a scam. The keys are sold on third party sites where refunds can't be obtained, and since this is the first review, before this, gamers had no way of knowing it's a scam. I certainly hope I can help gamers avoid broken products from unethical developers like this. The game was abandoned roughly 2 months after launch and hasn't been updated in 2 years. It blew past the developers commitment to complete the game without any notification or admission of failure from the developer. The game will never be completed. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH. The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. Unethically, the developers have left this on the Steam store in an unplayable and broken state. It's the responsibility of the developer to maintain their product, ensure it runs on all modern PCs, or if they determine there's defects and the game doesn't work, they should remove it from sale instead of misleadingly trying to scam gamers into buying knowingly defective products. This is harmful to Steam and to gamers, not just because it's a direct and intentional attempt to scam people, but because it takes a share of the marketing space and visibility away from other games. It's polluting Steam and making it harder for gamers to find genuine games and for genuine indie developers who put months or years into making proper games find an audience. Unethically, the developer sold keys to this abandoned Early Access game into cheap, nasty game bundles, where they knew it would be advertised and sold as a complete PC game. This seems to have been done in an attempt to mislead gamers into buying a knowingly faulty, defective and incomplete product. When a developer does this for a game they have zero practical intention of completing, this is essentially a scam, an intention to get paid for a broken/unfinished product. Often this is done as an exit strategy, as the developer takes the money and runs. No refunds have been given, the developer kept all the money they took from gamers. Another unethical act of this developer, knowing full well that this game is abandoned and they will never complete it, they are deliberately trying to scam gamers into buying it by offering it on discount from time to time. It's impossible to "accidentally" discount a game. The developer looked at their abandoned game, and instead of doing the right thing and removing it from Steam, they instead doubled-down and tried to scam even more people into paying for it. Greedy, and completely unethical. Doing the wrong thing, on purpose, for money. This is not okay. So, should you give money to this scammer? No. The developer is deliberately and unethically trying to scam gamers into paying them the insane price of $2 USD for a game they know is broken. Don't give it to them. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]