"Why does Valve allow this?": Indie publisher laments losing Overwhelmingly Positive Steam review score to off-topic rant, replies "please never, ever play any of our games"

Replying to a gross negative Steam review for automation sandbox game Little Rocket Lab, Mike Rose of publisher No More Robots offered some advice: "Please never, ever play any of our games ever again".

As Rose shared on Bluesky, Little Rocket Lab "had an Overwhelmingly Positive score on Steam, then these two reviews rolled in." (From the score averages on Steam, I gather this was specifically the game's recent review score.) The negative reviews in question complain of a "woke game" that "also has Muslims," and claim there's "too much forced politics" and that it "only took me 15 minutes to start getting force-fed DEI nonsense."

Replying to the first Steam user from his developer account, Rose said, "It's a shame that people like you exist in this world, but hey, at least we could piss you off. Please never, ever play any of our games again."

The second user, meanwhile, was advised by Rose to "please get in touch with Valve and ask them for a refund – we'd really rather not have people with such backwards views playing our games."

In his post, Rose wonders, "Why does Valve allow this?"

Adding more detail in a reply, he says, "I'm just so fucking tired with all of this. Valve does nothing to solve it. Everyone can see it's getting worse and worse. Why haven't they just put a filter on the term 'DEI'? Why are they cool with this? It fucking baffles me."

This wouldn't be the first time game devs or publishers have questioned Valve's responsibility to Steam reviews or forums. Rose's post has seen responses from developers who agree that this kind of transparent Islamophobia and prejudice, burped up by the kind of aimless people who'd stand facing away from a lamp if they ever ran out of shadows to bark at, violates Steam's review policy and could be reported and removed.

The first review, which openly takes issue with the presence and existence of Muslims, is a clear violation of Valve's first review guideline (emphasis mine): "Do not direct abuse or insults at other players, developers, or groups."

As Dan Schumacher of indie cooking roguelike Omelet You Cook told me last month as he navigated his own, much less serious review oddity: "For the vast majority of negative reviews, there's nothing to be done. Steam allows you to report reviews for being either Abusive or Off Topic ... but my understanding is that Steam only removes reviews if it clearly fits one of those categories."

Little Rocket Lab's recent review score has since ticked back to Overwhelmingly Positive, just above its 92% positive lifetime average.

The sequel to the one of the worst games of all time failed its Steam review and hasn't gotten a response from Valve, so it's been delayed: "Come on Steam, you guys are busting my balls here".