Valve Removes Steam Early Access Game Earth: Year 2066

Earth: Year 2066 was launched on Steam back on April 17th, 2014 for $20 and since the message board for the game is full of comments about the game lacking quality, false reviews being posted by the game designer and more importantly that artwork and music was stolen. Valve removed the ability to purchase Earth: Year 2066 from from the service this week and is offering full refunds for the $19.99 game title until May 19. Here is Valve’s statement:

“On Steam, developers make their own decisions about promotion, features, pricing and publication. However, Steam does require honesty from developers in the marketing of their games. We have removed Earth: Year 2066 from Early Access on Steam. Customers who purchased the game will be able to get a refund on the store page until Monday May 19th. If you don’t see a “Refund” button on the store page, you can find it from your account page under Transactions.“

Early Access games are not meant to be finished products, but it appears that Earth: Year 2066 was pretty bad. The movement to pull the game really got going after a Reddit campaign and a popular video by critic Jim Sterling calling it out for its broken state. After looking into what happened it looks like Steam did the right thing in this situation.