The World of Marius

Boring game with monotonous gameplay. I do not recommend wasting time.

[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b] "The World of Marius" is an asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated someone else's example/template/tutorial game, changed the name/reskinned a couple of things, and submitted it to Valve as if it was their own game.[/quote] Today's asset flip with fake/paid reviews is an unabashed, lazy ripoff of Super Mario Bros (Copyright Nintendo, 1985). Many lazy "amateur" developers don't pay attention to their obligations under copyright law, and often steal the ideas of actual, real game developers without credit, such as the "developer" here has done. At this stage no legal action has been taken by Nintendo against the "developer" here, but it's never off the table, as previous copyright law cases have shown. Assets were stolen from various sources, you can see the "Mario" character appearing in mobile apps like "Super Jungle Adventure" and so on... there's nothing original here that's the creation of the developer and it's likely this game will be removed when Nintendo gets word of the copyright infringement. Putting aside the unethical intellectual bankruptcy of stealing someone else's game concept for profit, this is also breaking that unwritten law of stealing other people's game ideas... you should at least try to do better than the game you're ripping off. "The World of Marius" is considerably worse than Super Mario Bros. Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The mismatched game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality, it's a wonder why they couldn't be bothered "borrowing" higher quality assets for this asset flip. This is a lot like going on a shoplifting spree but only stealing the cut price store brand goods. Regardless, the poor quality assets alone should be enough to deter gamers from bothering with this. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 6 players, and the worst part is these weren't genuine players, these were the Russian fake review accounts that the developer paid to make the fake reviews. Since the fake reviews are all done, now 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 110,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. [quote][b][url=https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-notices/16-cfr-part-465-trade-regulation-rule-use-consumer-reviews-testimonials-final-rule]Warning: Review Manipulation![/url][/b] This game features a number of fake positive reviews from accounts known to be in the business of review manipulation/paid reviews. They're all written in either Russian, broken English or ChatGPT, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams. The "Positive" review score on this game should be disregarded due to this blatant, unethical review manipulation. This is done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product. Due to the 2024 FTC ruling (16 CFR Part 465), these fake reviews are a violation of US Federal Law.[/quote] This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name. So, should you buy this asset flip? Is this better than any of the 110,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not! "The World of Marius" has the completely insane price of $50 USD, which is incredibly suspicious, higher than AAA pricing for an asset flip shovelware scam game. Why would the "developer" put such a high price tag on an asset flip with no true value as a game? There's no direct proof for this, but it's entirely possible this game is priced this way for money laundering or other criminal purposes. Higher prices allow more money to move with fewer transactions. Valve have previously banned developers for running money laundering scams. While there's no direct evidence in this case, it's highly suspicious and gamers should be wary. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. [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]