Dead City

Warning: Asset Flip!

Dead City is a Unity Asset flip, what Valve calls a "fake game". The "developer", Novalink, took the POLYGON Apocalypse - Low Poly 3D Art Unity Store tutorial/demo/game asset pack from the real developers, Synty Games, dropped the assets onto a top down shooter template they stole from someone else, and dumped the result onto Steam. They're attempting to scam people into buying this, so they can get your money for someone else's work.

The developer has almost a dozen of these asset flips on Steam, all using stolen/unattributed Synty assets, all massively overpriced... a consistent history of trying to scam gamers for minimum viable products copy + pasted from other people's assets.

It gets worse... "POLYGON Apocalypse - Low Poly 3D Art" has also been shamelessly dumped on Steam by other asset flippers apart from Novalink:

• "Abandoned Life", asset flipped by Independent Developer

Take a look for yourself... it's exactly the same asset pack!

Because this is an almost exact 1:1 copy + paste of the original Unity asset, it's in violation of the Unity Asset Store Terms of Service and EULA. Specifically, Section 2, Subsection 2.2.1a:

Subject to the restrictions set forth in this EULA, Licensor hereby grants to the END-USER a non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, and perpetual license to the Asset solely:(a) to incorporate the Asset, together with substantial, original content not obtained through the Unity Asset Store, into an electronic application or digital media that has a purpose, features, and functions beyond the display, performance, distribution, or use of Assets ("Licensed Product") as an embedded component of that Licensed Product, such that the Asset does not comprise a substantial portion of the Licensed Product

Because the developer misused the asset pack such that it comprises the vast majority of this "game", the developer has unethically and deliberately breached the license agreement. Worse, this intellectual property violation was done in an attempt to profit from their illicit actions. Why is this permitted on Steam?

The products that result from asset flips aren't "real" games. They lack depth and content, because they're just simplistic copies of demos or tutorials. In this case, "POLYGON Apocalypse - Low Poly 3D Art" is just a low poly asset pack for making Unity based post apocalypse themed games, and doesn't have any merit as a proper, fully fledged PC game, so this copy+paste of it can't be recommended.

Asset flips don't involve any professional game development. Sure, sometimes they may change a few cosmetic things, swap out different assets etc, but at heart it's functionally identical to the asset they're ripping off.

Asset flips like this are harmful to the gaming industry and to Steam because they reduce the visibility that sincerely made indie games should have, and make it harder for gamers to find real games from genuine developers.

Don't reward this morally bankrupt, unethical behaviour from Novalink.

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