Doodle Art: Drawing Games

[quote][b][URL=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware]Spyware Warning![/URL][/b]This game acts as spyware and performs personal data gathering and transmission. There's no immediate apparent way to opt out. This is completely unethical and reprehensible. Gamers must be aware of the dangers of installing this harmful software and should avoid this completely.[/quote] Doodle Art: Drawing Games is not a game. Games contain meaningful gamelike interaction and game loops, which are absent in this software. This is basically a neon version of MS-Paint acting as a trojan horse for the developers spyware (seriously, read the privacy policy they don't even show you until it's too late... it's downright sinister). This software's primary purpose is to gather data about you (and of course it's aimed at children, so you really have to question why the developers are so keen to know as much as they can about people who use a painting software application for kids). For those unfamiliar with what actually makes something a game, a "game loop" describes the interaction and feedback a gamer has when playing a game. Tetris, for example, has a game loop where a random block appears, the gamer interacts with the block to position it, and then the game decides if that finishes a row or not, increases the players score if any rows were completed, then gives the gamer another block to position. Counter-Strike has a game loop where a player seeks another player, tests their skill against that player by shooting them or being shot, the computer rewards the player if they win, and then if the player survives, they repeat that loop. There's no loop here, no true interactive feedback. It simply is not a game, it cannot be "played". This has misleadingly been launched in the "Games" section of Steam instead of the "Software" section. This is a common mistake for developers who are new to Steam, or don't understand the difference between games and software which isn't a game. It seems this software published incorrectly as a game is simply lack of experience/knowledge of the correct process. Here's a link for the process to publish non-game software on Steam: [url=https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithPublishing?issueid=925]Steam Developer Help With Software Publishing[/url] It's unfortunate this process was not known about/followed, resulting in a software application being published in the wrong place. Publishing things which aren't games on Steam in the Games section as games is misleading to gamers and somewhat harmful, because it pollutes the Steam marketplace and takes away visibility and market exposure for genuine game developers who do the right thing and make games for gamers. There are no gameplay loops in this software, no "gameplay", no meaningful game like interaction. It's a software application and as such has no merits as a video game for gamers. Because of this, I cannot recommend this non-game software as a game to gamers. The poor quality of this trojan horse pretending to be a paint program is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak user number was only 3 users. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only user 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 spyware is to be expected. So we can take some comfort that the people behind this nasty spyware didn't manage to gather as much data on people as they would have liked. There's a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User Agreement/Privacy Policy that you cannot opt out of because it's not displayed until after you already install and launch the spyware. This agreement includes questionable (and possibly law breaching) privacy requirements that no gamer should ever have to engage in. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. It's small consolation that because the developer failed to provide an up-front opt out, their agreement and policy isn't legally enforceable and it does open them up to legal repurcussions if it ever gets out how much data they've stolen from people through this malware. As mentioned, this game behaves as spyware and collects "telemetry" and personally identifying information. There is no apparent way to prevent this hostile and sinister privacy invasion. The developers will make the unverifiable claim that this data isn't personally identifying, of course that's BS as they're collecting IPs and all kinds of other information about gamers, when combined with other profiling data this can 100% identify an individual. They say it's for "QA" purposes but there's no guarantee they're not profiling you or selling your data to third parties as they spy on you. Should you trust them? Of course not... if they had any concerns about user safety and privacy, [i]they wouldn't have built spyware into their game with no way to disable it![/i] There's simply no reason to trust them and gamers should avoid this game because of this unacceptable privacy invasion. Doodle Art: Drawing Games has the far too high price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. Seriously, they want you to pay $10 USD for spyware that isn't even trojan horsed into a game. Disgusting. I hope this gets removed from Steam. As always gamers, beware. Nobody will advocate for gamers on Steam. [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]