BROK the InvestiGator Being Negatively-Reviewed By Scammers

BROK the InvestiGator blends the classical genres of point-and-click adventure and beat ’em up to create a nostalgic masterpiece. The game is inspired by 80s-90s old cartoony visuals and features two playable characters, leaving you to experience an awe-inspiring voice-acted adventure. BROK also incorporates RPG adventure elements that leave a stimulating effect on the gameplay.

It is labeled the most accomplished point-and-click adventure title by critics because it features a narrative-focused explosive rupture of 90s nostalgia. The indie title mixes puzzle, action, and investigation in ways never witnessed before and is quite popular in the gaming community.

In BROK the InvestiGator, the player can choose the path of peace and venture into the world through point-and-click and go all brain. The player can also select brawn and engage in a fistfight with every enemy. The game is set in a dystopian cyberpunk world where humans are replaced by animals. The elites live in a dome to prevent the effects of ambient air pollution, while the poor live outside to make a living. 

BROK the InvestiGator has received a positive review from the players and established itself as a popular indie gem. The developer COWCAT has put a lot of love into the game and kept up with the community. However, the game is suddenly being targeted by Steam Curators with negative reviews, unlike before. 

This incident began after COWCAT decided to test Steam curators who were mass-emailing for Steam keys. The series of tweets posted by COWCAT discussed a compelling theory regarding the sudden review-bombing. The developer suspected the keys were sold on shady websites to consumers, so he decided to use a tactic to detect scammers out of legit curators.

BROK is currently being mass targetted by Steam curators sending negative reviews 😶

⬇️ THREAD ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ae0L24ei3H

— BROK THE INVESTIGATOR 🐊 Wishlist the DLC! (@COWCATGames) August 28, 2022

COWCAT began giving prologues out as keys to the Steam curators. According to the developer, the genuine curators would ask while they did not receive the full version of the game after activating the key. Sure enough, only a few curators asked the obvious, while the other side of the spectrum did not activate the key and likely sold it on grey sites instead.

The ticked-off consumers are coming back to the resellers to inquire why they did not receive the full version. This tactic potentially exposed many curators as Steam key resellers and brought a wave of undeserving negative reviews to the game. Visiting the official steam page of Brok the InvestiGator gives a better understanding. You can see that a good part of curator reviews for the game are negative. 

My theory is that those scammers started selling those keys on grey sites like Kinguin, Gamivo, G2A etc and are now getting angry clients coming back at them!

(11/16) pic.twitter.com/aayu79jmHq

— BROK THE INVESTIGATOR 🐊 Wishlist the DLC! (@COWCATGames) August 28, 2022

Exposing the scammers resulted in them changing their once-positive reviews to negative ones instead. The developer also showed a considerable amount of emails asking for Steam keys. He cited that indie developers have to bear these emails often. Most of these emails look for the keys to sell them to grey sites to make a quick buck.

Here is the kind of emails I got before release.
TONS AND TONS of them.
All indie devs have to suffer through these.

(5/16) pic.twitter.com/WAejWOipD7

— BROK THE INVESTIGATOR 🐊 Wishlist the DLC! (@COWCATGames) August 28, 2022

The trick to giving free prologues as Steam keys potentially unveiled most of the curators as Steam key resellers since most of them did not ask why there was not a full game. The curators ended up giving negative reviews because of the backlash of customers. 

However, there is no definite evidence of this theory being correct. But the compelling evidence and the negative review-bombing caused by the testing cannot be denied. Key re-selling is nothing new and is often done a lot on grey sites. These antics hurt the developers, especially the indie games a lot and should not be supported. 

The community is openly supporting the developers on Forums and the Twitter thread. What are your thoughts about COWCAT exposing the scammers? Do let us know your opinions in the comments below.