Steam Will Restrict ‘Fake Games’ Used For Achievement Farming

Valve has notified developers that some games available over the Steam marketplace will now be restricted to 100 achievements, Valve has recently said that these achievement farming games are being used to confuse algorithms and users.

Now if a game hasn’t reached the confidence metric Valve already developed for trading card farming games, it will be limited to 100 achievements, and those achievements won’t count toward a player’s global achievement count or be displayable on their profile. The game also won’t count toward the number of games they own, and won’t be eligible for coupons.

“Under the changes Valve will apply the “confidence metric” it introduced last year when it made changes to Steam Trading Cards to also stop dodgy game makers from exploiting the feature. Games short of the “confidence metric” will be subject to the 100-achievement limit. Further, they won’t be displayed in a user’s achievement showcase and won’t contribute to a global achievement count.

“As you can guess,” Valve told developers, “fake games were inflating achievement and game counts for users to display on their profiles.” While the number who were doing so was small, “these fake games still confuses our algorithms and users.”

Notably, “for those who still want to buy products for the purpose of increasing their game or achievement counts, we now show whether or not a game is under those constraints on its [Steam] Store page.” This may not satisfy those who disdain achievements altogether on the platform, and in some games badges are given out for menial or meaningless “accomplishments.” But Valve seems to have signaled that it has to do a better job of certifying that this is stuff worth bragging about.”

For the full article visit Polygon.