[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
TV Thief is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unreal Marketplace packs, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.[/quote]
Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware.
In this case, the Russian asset flipper, Quarlellle put on a fake moustache (why do Russian asset flippers love to use fake shell accounts to try hide their identity so much?) took a basic 3D top down stealth blueprint from Unreal and filled it out with a bunch of low poly assets stolen from Synty Studios. It has no value or merit as a real game.
GRAY FLAMINGO is just a shell account for Quarlelle, the Russian asset flipper, who has shown a repeat pattern of unethically dumping other people's work onto Steam as a cheap, nasty cash grab, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. Here's some examples so you can see for yourself:
[list]
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1801850]Cats War[/url]" = [url=https://unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/polygon-town-pack]Polygon Town Pack[/url] developed by Synty Studios
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903600]Zombie VS Police[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/polygon-city-pack]POLYGON - City Pack[/url] developed by Synty Studios
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1776260]Crazy Truck[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/polygon-city-pack]POLYGON - City Pack[/url] developed by Synty Studios
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1819190]Rescue Helicopter[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/polygon-city-pack]POLYGON - City Pack[/url] developed by Synty Studios
[/list]
Problematically, this game left Steam Early Access without being properly completed or polished by the developers. This is arguably worse and less ethical than when developers persist in selling abandoned Early Access bundles instead of removing them from Steam. Selling an incomplete Early Access game without the Early Access warning is a deliberate act to mislead/fool gamers into buying a knowingly abandoned and defective product. This is not okay.
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.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.
Bewilderingly, the game doesn't include proper audio controls, so you can't turn off the annoying sound/background music, you'll need to alt+tab out and stop it using the Windows sound mixer. This is obviously not okay and it's unclear why the developers chose not to include this basic feature.
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 3 players. This is a remarkably low number, and 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 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
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 game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?
TV Thief is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. 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. Remember that if you buy a game from an unethical developer, you're putting your money at risk.
[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]
