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In theory, the low quality of these games should be enough to starve them out entirely, but Steam’s own trading card system complicates the matter. Many of Silicon Echo’s titles (or those of its
alleged pseudonym, Zonitron Productions) have been made available in very cheap bundles, which would in the end allow players to profit by idling in-game to get trading cards and then sell those cards on the community market. The developers profit, players profit, and Valve even profits on both ends of the transaction, assuming you discount the damage done to the Steam storefront.
“This person was mass-shipping nearly-identical products on Steam that were impacting the store’s functionality and making it harder for players interested in finding fun games to play,” says Valve. “This developer was also abusing Steam keys and misrepresenting themselves on the Steam store. As a result, we have removed those games from the Steam Store and ended our business relationship with them.”
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Silicon Echo also question why their older games were taken down despite having passed through the community curation of Steam Greenlight. They have a point, but it’s one that serves more as an indictment of Valve’s unwillingness to curate their own store rather than an exoneration of the studio. Silicon Echo say “our reputation is destroyed beyond repair,” and if that weren’t already true it certainly would have been ruined by their own statements today.
Update, October 2: After having their entire library pulled from Steam, Silicon Echo Studios have shut down.
Following widespread criticism of their business practices, Valve pulled nearly 200 games developed by Silicon Echo Studios from Steam last week. That seems to have been enough to force Silicon Echo to shut its doors, as they’ve announced the studio will be shutting down.
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