Ugh...he is acting childish, despite his age...I'm pretty sure that there are streamers and users who just want to piss on the game (as it happens in every game to date) too, but his behaviour can't be justified.

I think he is either referring on Cleve's old forum or "reviews" in the form of threads on steam, rather than official steam reviews. The only way I know to remove steam reviews from a game is to completeley delete a game's store page and make it again, that will clear any negative review (along positive ones) and its steam forum. This practice was done sometime in the past, in order to clear games from a too bad score, a douche move, nonetheless to say.

So I guess the DRM proposal means Grimoire won't pop up here?

It seems that Cleve has still intention to release the game on GOG aswell, but he said that first he want to perfect it and fix all the bugs of the steam counterpart, and at last release the game here.

The issue is: judging by the time he spent on this game makes me wonder how many years will pass before seeing the game here...

Looks like Cleve just went full rage mode and banned another IndieGoGo $100 backer from Steam for criticizing the game. Felipepepe has been a RPG Codex supporter over the years and the criticism was pretty mild for this tantrum, sheesh.

Added images for the now *banned* review and Barkmore's response.

Sure looks like he is trying to make a good impression for his future GOG.com submission.

oh my goodness! i just read that review on Steam a few hours ago and i felt that it was a fair and balanced review. Cleve is off his rocker if he thinks that that's an aggressive game trashing review (laughed at the "free" my fucking ass rebuttal)

Someone asked about the missing review and Cleve answered: https://steamcommunity.com/app/650670/discussions/0/2579854400741152321/

Well , i wouldn't buy this game atm .

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/grimoire-release-thread-massive-incline.117563/page-170#post-5261737

Steam seems to have a real problem with giving developers too much control over their forums. Cleve seems like an asshole but it also looks like there might be more to this perhaps?

That thing about fake press releases is strange.

I'm not sure what you meant by fake press release, did I miss something in the text I posted?

For me the best part was when 'ole Barkmore claimed he was defrauded a game key by being too trusting (Felipepepe already confirmed it was not a free "press" key, but instead his entitlement sent through IndieGoGo), when to date the only ones defrauded were certain IndieGoGo backers and not that weasel Barkmore himself. I have a recent response from Barkmore where he told me to find a scene release of Grimoire or litigate as he has no intention of making good on my IndieGoGo contribution.

All I know about Felipepepe is that he is a long time RPG Codexer, definitely a IndieGoGo backer, and a "reviewer" that as far as I can tell is unpaid and providing a 450+ page CRPG book anyone can download for free ( https://t.co/fd8c06Urtk ) detailing the history of CRPGs as his hobby.

If anybody wants to see an instance of genuine 'decline', they should look at what's become of RPGCodex as it mounts its cringeworthy defence of Grimoire. They've taken fanboyism to a whole new level of absurdity and it's nauseating to watch. I used to post there a few years ago and liked it a lot but now I'm embarrassed to say I was ever a member.

It's probably absolute BS/hyperbole but he says:

"I can take criticism but I'm not tolerating guys deciding they will issue fake press releases in my name."
I read someone saying "just don't do all the broken things/use the broken weapons, etc". Like what kind of a defence is that? The game is fine if you can firstly work out ahead of time and then not do any of the things that makes it bad. No critical thinking going on there.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/grimoire-release-thread-massive-incline.117563/page-169#post-5261692

What kind of developer attitude is this ? Will not buy this game no matter how good is it .

This is cancer, true cancer. From when did a steam forum become HIS forum? Such arrogant behaviour. Terminating his key too? I think he is one if not the only person to even go so far. What a garbage.

Anyone think Steam would be stand up enough to say about this crap?

If the dev keeps doing this, and by doing so continue to aggravate potential buyers, you'd think it would become a bigger hassle than Steam can just ignore.

I'd love to see them pull the guy aside and tell him, "You wanna treat our customers like this fine, fuck you, go peddle your crap elsewhere."

Could you please post the full link instead of using a URL shortener?

I would say that the RPGCodex forum is itself a decline even before Grimoire. That site has sexism enshrined into the forum software (the fact that users "brofist" other posts, and that the term is enshrined into the forum software (and quite prominent, unlike the one instance I found on GOG's forum, which only comes up if you've blocked another user), and that I remember stumbling across a thread that had blatant transphobia directed at a certain game industry veteran. So, I would say that the forums are themselves a case of serious decline.

(Yes, I know I wasn't quite consistent with singular versus plural here.)

Reminds me of what many players end up doing with Morrowind (though there, the problem is more with things being overpowered to the point of being game breaking rather than causing nasty bugs).

Edit: With that said, I should point out that Bethesda doesn't treat their customers horribly the way Cleve seems to.