After multiple complaints about Earth: Year 2066 on Early Access, Valve removed the game from Steam and is offering refunds for the $19.99 game.

Earth: Year 2066 is a game that released on Steam Early Access for $19.99 that was criticized in the Steam forums because of its bad quality and obvious lack of effort that went into it. The makers of the game, Killing Game Studios, were accused of deleting negative feedback, making accounts to hype the game up, and even stealing artwork and passing it off as original.

After these complaints, a Reddit campaign to take it down, and a call-to-action video by The Escapist’s Jim Sterling, the game was finally taken down. Those who would like a refund can claim theirs by May 19 by going to the store page.

My Opinion:

After I heard about this through Mr. Sterling’s video, it occurred to me that the indie game community has gone downhill. At first, it was a place to see innovative new material that differed from mainstream games. Then the horribly buggy and copied The War Z came out, which was similarly taken down. I have included the video in this article because, well, look at it. I could make a better game in a day. ONE DAY. It is a disgrace to the game industry that something like this could get $20 from people based on lies and promises that it could not keep.

Source: Polygon

Shawn Richards studies games to understand how they work. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.