Source
r/Steam•
SillyPrincess

Changes in Steam API? 50+ removed games no longer add a '+1' to game count / owned games - Achievement pages not accessible

Question

I noticed -102 to my game count today. This happened July 6th also, around -110. I am unsure which games/developers these are. Any info from Steam/Valve? I would be happier if Steam told us the names of the games affected and the developers.

[Edit] The developer is named 'Zonitron' with his 2nd company on Steam 'Silicon Echo' who combined have 173 games on steam that were removed today. While I am glad this developer is gone, I don't understand why Valve allowed all his games to be released on Steam.

Some games include:

Airon Ball

AironBall: The Floating Lands

AironBall: The Loop

Ball of Paint

Berry Pop Match

Berryblast Matchmaker

Blu Bandana

Break The Wall

Burger in Partyland

Carnival Ball

Clickey

Clickey: The Velocity Click

Color Balling

Color Snooker

ColorSpill Ball

Crush The Berries

Edges

Edges 2

Flipper Hazard

Flipper Hazard 2

Flipper Hazard 3

Flipper Hazard 4

Flipper Hazard 5

Fruit Candypop

GooCubelets: Color Blocking

GooCubelets: OCD

GooCubelets: RGB

Grin Bandana

Helium Skies

Hexa Faction

Hexa Faction 2

Laseronium

Laseronium - The Reflexion

Laseronium 2

Laseronium: Over The Line

Laseronium: The Beam Focus

Laseronium: The Line

Match and Crash

Mr. Jumpington

Mr. Jumpington 2

Paint Polygon

PaintPool

Paintsplash Ball

Paper Knights

Pins

Pins 2

Pins 3

Point Connect

Point Connect 2

Point Connect 3

Point Connect 4

Purpul Bandana

Raccoon Hero

Raccoon Hero: Among The Cacti

Raccoon Hero: Monkey Business

Raccoon Hero: Starlight

Raccoon Hero: The Frost

Raccoon Hero: The Marsh

Raccoon Hero: The Sunrise

Raccoon Hero: Under The Sea

RINGOӘͶIЯ

RINGOӘͶIЯ 2

Run, Goo, Run

RunZ

RunZ 2

SHAPES

SHAPES2

SHAPES3

SHAPES4

SHAPES5

SHAPES6

SHAPES7

SHAPES8

Sketchy

Sketchy 2

Sketchy 3

Sketchy 4

SlingSkull Zombies

SlingSkull Zombies 2

SlingSkull Zombies: Gravedigger

SlingSkull Zombies: Graveyard Shift

SlingSkull Zombies: The Dawn

Sound Balling

Sound Balling 2

Sphere Toss

Sphere Toss 2

Sphere Toss 3

Sphere Toss 4

Staplers!

Staplers! 2

Staplers! 3

Sugar Fruit Match

Sweet Berry Crush

None of these games were given away or have trading card yet. I got them from the Steam store 3-4 weeks ago and you can't refund purchases older than 2 weeks. xD
Thanks valve!

Posted Sep 25, 2017, 9:33 PM UTC · edited

4368
idkwtfiad•

Stop buying shit games for ~5 cents a piece from shit bundles, and you won't have this problem...

If you're significantly affected by this change, you're not a game collector. You're a hoarder. Of shit.

66
Neeralazrahttps://steam.pm/21wb90•

What site sells Zonitron game for 5 cents each? I have all in Steamgrounds and I only lost 34 games

10
Persona_Alio•

Many of these games were given away for free

9
Le0Frhttps://steam.pm/135rej•

I lost 87 games, and I bought most of them with Steam coupons :/

2†
unhi•

I was just about to buy a couple more of their games with coupons I got last night. I actually kinda liked a couple of their shitty games. For 10-20 cents a piece I was still getting my money's worth.

It was pretty obvious they were abusing the system though so I can't say I'm surprised or disappointed they're gone.

9
sellymehttps://steam.pm/14eglr•

I actually kinda liked a couple of their shitty games.

A few of the applications published by Zonitron were certainly playable, but that's mostly because they weren't "their games", they were other people's games that Zonitron copy+pasted onto Steam.

12
Neeralazrahttps://steam.pm/21wb90•

ahhh I actually got 1 coupon yesterday and it was 5 cents as well good thing i didn't use it.

I thought you were mentioning another cheap bundle site which i didn't know yet since i only had 34 games from them and it seems weird since i usually buy cheap stuff

1
ihavetopoop•

I got them all for free and profited off the cards.

2†
imelmanhttps://steam.pm/1md8x4•

Congrats, you also made MONEY for those evil devs. Well, many people did that, but all of us didn't knew(actually the reviews were telling otherwise)that it was evil for all the time...

And I'm sending refund tickets on their games like I did with Digital Homicide and other evil devs games. They don't deserve ANY of our money.

10
ihavetopoop•

Will you explain why Zonitron is evil? I know Digital Homicide was suing Steam users, but I'm not aware of what Zonitron has done.

6
Astealoth•

"evil" is a bit of hyperbole. They spammed keys for shit games they made in an afternoon to farm card sales. It's a severe annoyance for discoverability on Steam, having 173 random barely playable games of the utmost shit quality on the store front from one "developer" adds too much garbage to wade through for potential buyers looking for good games. Evil really isn't the word in my opinion, Valve let them get away with it for a long time. They were just utilizing the systems as implemented, but in a way that didn't benefit the platform. It's good for Valve to seal up these holes with manual oversight. If Valve allows people to post as many horrible games as they possibly can, then it's kinda Valve's fault that people posted as many shit games as they possibly could.

14
coolfangs•

Blame the people wasting money on the stupid/pointless cards. Until that stops the problem isn't going away. Can't blame people for taking an easy money making opportunity.

4
CeSium_Shark•

This is the main reason there are shitty games on steam. They can throw in a few trading cards, and people flock to it to profit from it. When people finally stop squeezing a few cents out of trading cards from shitty games will be the day that less shitty games are on steam.

1
charliedumdum•

I think I will stop supporting Steam and check out other gaming Platforms now.

Good luck with that. Also Steam API is completely irrelevant.

29
sellymehttps://steam.pm/14eglr•

EDIT: It appears that stat pages are getting disabled, which I don't believe Valve has ever done for removals before. It's possible that this may just be the developer removing everything, as we have evidence of the developer being online and active mere minutes before this occurred. I'll keep this post updated as the news develops.

EDIT2: Confirmed that stat page disablings have been done by Valve before (for Sayaka and all other games by that developer last week), so that may just be regular protocol now. Back to the original theory of Valve nuking Zonitron from orbit.

Changes in Steam API?

No. The previous case was a change in the API causing removed games to no longer count to the games counter. This case is just a fuckload of games getting removed all at once (and decreasing the counter because of the previous, already-implemented change).

How can we avoid this in the future if we don't even know what games are affected.

Let's be real: if you weren't fully aware of the shady shit Zonitron was doing yet managed to purchase 50+ of their games, you really need to be paying more attention to where you're spending your money.

It would be nice if they made an official statement - they've done so in the past for game removals, and I expect that we'll hear something about this from Valve soon given how notable a case it is.

25
SillyPrincessOP•

Let's be real: if you weren't fully aware of the shady shit Zonitron was doing yet managed to purchase 50+ of their games, you really need to be paying more attention to where you're spending your money.

Considering Steam is a billion dollar corporation, they can't deal with Zonitron ahead of time? As a customer who browses the sales via Steam Client, I don't think its 100% my fault for buying a game off a shady developer. Steam even emailed me to get my attention to look into the sales.

Also, were all 100 of the games from Zonitron? I can't find any information on any of the games removed.

16
sellymehttps://steam.pm/14eglr•

Oh, I fully agree that they're comically late to dealing with this issue, but that doesn't make it any more difficult to avoid this incredibly obvious asset flip developer.

6
JohnHue•

I was just asking myself if people were actually buying these games. To me anyone in their right mind should as least see that it's not worth buying, IF they don't see straight away that it's from a shady developer.

1
ladyshadowcathttps://steam.pm/13rsnq•

They were in a bunch of bundles. Run, Goo, Run was in an Indie Gala bundle. I don't know which other ones turned up like that.

1
Twistorian•

Yeah, they were. :-/

Several of my Steam friends were buying them. I like to think it was mostly with the -90% coupons you get from making badges (making badges for coupons was utterly useless because of these "games" making the majority of them if you were avoiding them).

I own a few of them through bundles but refuse to touch them.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0
TimeToMoo•

List of games banned from API today (172 in total):

Absconding Zatwor

Airon Ball

AironBall: The Floating Lands

AironBall: The Loop

Ball of Paint

Barclay: The Marrowdale Murder

Beast Blaster

Berry Pop Match

Berryblast Matchmaker

Black My White

Black My White Again

Blu Bandana

Break Into Zatwor

Break The Wall

Brilliant Bob

Burger in Partyland

Carnival Ball

Clickey

Clickey: The Velocity Click

Color Balling

Color Snooker

ColorSpill Ball

Crush The Berries

Cyborg Detonator

Edges

Edges 2

Fiends of Imprisonment

Flipper Hazard

Flipper Hazard 2

Flipper Hazard 3

Flipper Hazard 4

Flipper Hazard 5

Fruit Candypop

GooCubelets

GooCubelets 2

GooCubelets: Color Blocking

GooCubelets: OCD

GooCubelets: RGB

GooCubelets: The Algoorithm

GooCubelets: The Void

Gravity At Its Finest

Gravity At Its Finest 2

Grin Bandana

Helium Skies

Hexa Faction

Hexa Faction 2

Laseronium

Laseronium - The Reflexion

Laseronium 2

Laseronium: Over The Line

Laseronium: The Beam Focus

Laseronium: The Line

Match and Crash

Mr. Jumpington

Mr. Jumpington 2

Paint Polygon

PaintPool

Paintsplash Ball

Paper Knights

Pins

Pins 2

Pins 3

Point Connect

Point Connect 2

Point Connect 3

Point Connect 4

Purpul Bandana

Raccoon Hero

Raccoon Hero: Among The Cacti

Raccoon Hero: Monkey Business

Raccoon Hero: Starlight

Raccoon Hero: The Frost

Raccoon Hero: The Marsh

Raccoon Hero: The Sunrise

Raccoon Hero: Under The Sea

Rage Parking Simulator 2016

Rage Parking Simulator 2017

RINGOӘͶIЯ

RINGOӘͶIЯ 2

Run, Goo, Run

RunZ

RunZ 2

SHAPES

SHAPES2

SHAPES3

SHAPES4

SHAPES5

SHAPES6

SHAPES7

SHAPES8

Sketchy

Sketchy 2

Sketchy 3

Sketchy 4

Sleengster

Sleengster 2

Sleengster 3

SlingSkull Zombies

SlingSkull Zombies 2

SlingSkull Zombies: Gravedigger

SlingSkull Zombies: Graveyard Shift

SlingSkull Zombies: The Dawn

Sound Balling

Sound Balling 2

Sphere Toss

Sphere Toss 2

Sphere Toss 3

Sphere Toss 4

Staplers!

Staplers! 2

Staplers! 3

Sugar Fruit Match

Sweet Berry Crush

Tesla's Best Friend

The First Spark

The Last Photon

The Return of Bantara

The Safeguard Garrison

The Safeguard Garrison 2

The Safeguard Garrison: Space Colonies

They Came From The Moon

THREE CANDYBERRY MATCH

Torch Cave

Torch Cave 2

Torch Cave 3

TOREj

TOREj 2

Tracks of Triumph: Good Old Times

Tracks of Triumph: Industrial Zone

Tracks of Triumph: Summertime

Whait Bandana

Why So Evil

Why So Evil 2: Dystopia

Wild Goo Chase

Yello Bandana

Zombie Boom

AimerBall (Unreleased)

AimerBall 2 (Unreleased)

Burger in Hyperland (Unreleased)

Burger on Acid (Unreleased)

Good Eggzample (Unreleased)

GooHuebelets (Unreleased)

Great Eggzample (Unreleased)

Helium Skies 2 (Unreleased)

HexaPlunge (Unreleased)

HexaPlunge 2 (Unreleased)

Machinegun Geometry (Unreleased)

Machinegun Geometry: The Right Angle (Unreleased)

Mr. Jumpington 3 (Unreleased)

Mr. Jumpington 4 (Unreleased)

Pass The Time (Unreleased)

Pass The Time 2 (Unreleased)

Pins 4 (Unreleased)

Point Connect 5 (Unreleased)

Point Snake (Unreleased)

RemOOve (Unreleased)

RemOOve 2 (Unreleased)

RINGOӘͶIЯ 3 (Unreleased)

Sound Balling 3 (Unreleased)

Staplers! 4 (Unreleased)

Sum Sketch (Unreleased)

The Herbologist (Unreleased)

Tinge (Unreleased)

Tinge 2 (Unreleased)

TOREj 3 (Unreleased)

TOREj 4 (Unreleased)

TOREj: Red Cubes (Unreleased)

Unblocky (Unreleased)

Unblocky 2 (Unreleased)

Unblocky 3 (Unreleased)

Unblocky 4 (Unreleased)

24
Iceblack88•

That's like 1,200,000 achievements right there

3
TimeToMoo•

Nearly, 41k removed

3
derkleinemachttps://steam.pm/1ka2z7•

"achievements". in this case those are just trash, just as the games

0
Iceblack88•

Relax buddy, not everything has to be so serious all the time. Laugh at yourself sometimes

2
seralsan•

lost 23 games :(

3
Humpaaa•

All Zonitron Production games have been removed. That's ~200 titles, if you include all his sockpuppet accounts

12
sellymehttps://steam.pm/14eglr•

173, to be precise.

9
Humpaaa•

Correct: http://steam.madjoki.com/app/659850/related

7
SillyPrincessOP•

Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware hes the guy who made Why So Evil, Why So Evil 2, etc. Over 1 million users have purchased that game. At least we all get a -1 together I guess. Isn't as bad as I first assumed. A lot of the newer games however did not have trading cards yet, due to the card policy Steam set in place recently, a game gets cards based on a trust rate on legitimate sales. Also, these games were not bundled, no keys were given away. They all had to be purchased from the Steam Store using Steam Wallet.

3
sellymehttps://steam.pm/14eglr•

Achievements don't get removed when a game is removed, they'll remain associated with your account (and can even be earned by anyone who owns the game).

4
smeggysmeg•

All Silicon Echo games, too. Apparently it's a shell name.

2
Humpaaa•

Correct.
Zonitron = Silicon Echo = Crimson Duck Studios = Digital Carrot Productions = Digital Airony = Pixberry Studios = Broadplay Games = Floop Productions etc.

4
plezmoid•

Lost 20 games. Was looking forward to hitting that sweet 2k , now it seems so far away.

5
StrawberryGhostie•

As expected, on this thread, gamer community is doing what they do best: blaming the victims. Pointing your dirty finger to someone to make them feel bad for being tricked looks like a strange way to get your ego inflated.

I don't really care about those games, since most of them were often free (and, thus, I got all of them for free), which doesn't mean Volvo shouldn't be more transparent.

4
DjGushttps://steam.pm/xjn9n•

At least a fucking account alert summarizing the thing would do... Just so half the userbase doesn't go "wtf?"

8
tapczan100•

Exactly, doesn't matter if those games are good or bad. Almost 200 games instantly go in limbo, this is really not cool

5
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
PancakeGuy55•

I'm confused, are these games removed from your library preventing you from playing them again or are they simply no longer counted on your profile as owned?

3
Donners22https://steam.pm/pisev•

They remain in your library, they just lose their store page and no longer count to your total.

13
PancakeGuy55•

Makes sense. I guess if they started removing delisted games from users' libraries it probably wouldn't end well for Valve. But not sure why the games would no longer count towards your overall number of owned games.

6
enigmachaos•

Just removed from the count, regardless of whether you paid for them or not. You can still play the games.

8
PancakeGuy55•

That's a relief. Can't say I've ever heard of "Zonitron" but I thought Valve was starting to remove delisted games from users libraries. Thanks for clearing it up.

5
drackmore•

No they've never done that, and if they ever did they'd have to have a SERIOUSLY good reason to do so without incurring some real shit on their end.

Hell you can still download Digital Homicide's shit and Valve removed them with extreme prejudice.

1
astranovas•

lost 20 games today from the library sad. wanna to end some of them and their achiviements

3
KlappPc•

As mentioned like 100 times here. You can still download and play these games, they are still in your library. They ONLY do not show up on your profile page anymore.

3
midgetrapist666•

Too bad there like a thousand more to go, I don't even understand the reasoning behind letting a bunch of crap in and then remove a select handful at random, or what did these devs do to stand from the rest this time? Either accept everything or nothing.

2
Alenonimo•

The idea is to accept everything, but Silicon Echo was really pushing the limits to scam Valve, other devs and the consumers.

I do want more games to be on Steam. I don't even mind that a lot of games are visual novels and therefore not really games. But I also don't want to see the store being used as a scam to make money on leveling accounts and vomiting achievements.

Removing the shovelware is the minimum that Valve could do and I'm glad they at least did this.

1
Morphineholic•

Lost a few games but they were trash anyway.

2
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
TotesMessenger•

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^(Info ^/ ^Contact)

1
mrm4rk0•

I thought it was a bug or something, since I lost around 20 games from my library count. Now I know what's the deal.

1
mercilesssinner•

I don't think any of my games were deleted. That's actually quite sad, because I never cared about playing them, only to get cards.

1
q2evhttps://steam.pm/16woeo•

yeah and now we got shitloads of non marketable cards. i guess iam gonna sell cards asap as they drop from now on

1
furry_thrOwOaway•

I lost like 5-6 games from my library personally but i don't really mind. All of them were crappy Indiegala massive giveaway titles that i only had because selling the trading cards gave me cents to waste on tf2 cosmetics.

As i said i dont really mind, but if you wanted to have a ton of games maybe this is a hard blow for you.

1
smeggysmeg•

Well damn, I backed The Herbologist and now it looks like Silicon Echo's entire catalog was removed from Steam. I guess I won't be getting anything for my $15.

1
Alenonimo•

I think I remember that one. It's the closest thing that resembled a game on their catalogue.

Oh well, just follow the Sentinels of the Store group to know more or less what Steam could be targeting next. They also have a lot of background info on Zonitron/Silicon Echo games and why they were the scum of the Earth. It's entertaining to read.

2
Alenonimo•

[Edit] I purchased the complete set of one of his games on September 9th (Blu/Green/White/Yellow/etc Bandanna) and tried to refund it since I used my Steam Wallet and the Steam Store to purchase them. Steam replied saying no refunds on purchases older than 2 weeks. Thanks again Valve! They allowed the games to be sold on Steam for quite a while. As a collector, I will probably stop and who knows which developers are next and the customer is the one losing here.

Wait, did you buy Zonitron/Silicon Echo games on purpose?! Why? I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to play them, so what's the point? If you had got them during IndieGala and Groupees bundles, I would understand though.

Was it to drop the cards so you could sell them and make your money back? Why would you request a refund then? And why would you help that dumb company publish more shovelware?

Was it to say that you have 8000 games on Steam? What's wrong with having 4000? You don't need to lower yourself that much. There are lots of cheap games that at least are games. :|

I don't really feel sorry for you. Better luck next time. :D

1
SillyPrincessOP•

Valve restricted card drops months ago. I didn't get a single card for any of the games released on steam recently. You also can't refund a game after 2 weeks. I just don't get why Valve allows all the games to be released on Steam, they have to manually accept each one with the removal of Greenlight. I assumed it was safe to purchase.

1
Alenonimo•

Valve is trying to change the model of the store, from a curated store where every item is hand approved to an automated Amazon-style store where anyone can submit their products and get it sold automatically. Not sure why woudn't they just hire some cheap labor to approve/reject the submissions but there you go.

Don't assume something is safe to purchase. There were one or two cases of games triggering anti-virus alerts even. Not sure if they actually had virus but that means they don't really check for that either.

1
jonis221https://steam.pm/3q97ws•

Yea, games was really weird (lots of)

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0