Blue Archive publisher Nexon Games recently announced that it will be prematurely terminating a “Steam Review Event” held in-game. Prior to this announcement, media and Steam users pointed out that the event in question was potentially in violation of Valve’s terms of use.
After four successful years on iOS and Android, Nexon’s gacha RPG Blue Archive got a PC release via Steam earlier this month. The launch has been largely successful, with a Very Positive rating and a total of 11,139 reviews at the time of writing. However, it is suspected that the game incentivized users to leave reviews in a way that’s against the platform’s rules. As reported by GameSpot, Blue Archive hosted an event that promised its whole playerbase free in-game rewards if the Steam version’s review count reached 10,000.
Valve’s Steamworks Documentation forbids publishers from making attempts to “abuse or artificially manipulate the review system,” and even more explicitly, it prohibits soliciting reviews “in exchange for any games, DLC, money, or other rewards” (with the exception of sending a copy of your game to press or Internet personalities for coverage). While Blue Archive did not explicitly solicit positive reviews in an attempt to sway the review score, the very act of promising items for a certain number of reviews (regardless of them being positive or negative) appears to clash with these rules.
Perhaps in response to such concerns, Nexon shortly announced via Steam that Blue Archive’s “Steam Review Event” would be terminated prematurely. The publisher explained that it “discovered that certain aspects could potentially conflict with platform policies.” Accordingly, in order to comply with Steam’s rules, the promised rewards will not be distributed. Nexon apologized for “any inconvenience this may have caused.”
