ABOUT Sentinels of the Store

It's Time for Real Change

The Sentinels of the Store is a group founded on the core values of transparency, fairness, and consumer protection. Our journey began when we saw the urgent need to address the growing concerns within the Steam ecosystem. Together, we formed the Sentinels of the Store to champion the rights of both consumers and developers, ensuring that everyone in our community is treated with the respect and fairness they deserve.

What We Stand For

We are unwavering in our mission to protect consumers from malpractice and deceit. Our commitment to transparency ensures that you can trust the games you purchase and the developers you support.

We believe in fostering a healthy environment where developers can thrive without fear of exploitation or unfair treatment. By advocating for fair enforcement of policies, we ensure that all developers, big or small, have an equal opportunity to succeed.

We take a firm stance against those who seek to undermine the integrity of the Steam platform. We actively work to identify and expose bad actors, ensuring that they face the consequences of their actions.

Consistency and fairness are at the heart of our approach. We strive to assist Valve in the enforcement of Steam's policies, making sure that rules are applied equally to all, without favoritism or bias.

Our Vision

We envision a Steam community where:

Consumers are protected and informed.
Developers are respected and supported.
Policies are clear, fair, and consistently enforced.
Transparency and accountability are the norms, not the exceptions.

We believe that real change is possible, but it requires the collective effort and support of each member of our community.

Together, we can build a better Steam community for all. Stand with us, and let’s make real change happen.

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E-mail: mellowonline1@gmail.com

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RECENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Valve Acknowledge Obzor - Here are the Next Steps

13 July - Mellow_Online1 | 12 Comments

Now with the charity drive now over and done with (the exception of the winners of the raffle to be announced) its back to our business as usual, and we have a very positive update with regards to the Obzor review ring which we've been covering the last couple of months.

A couple of days ago, Valve sent an email to SidAlpha in which they acknowledged their awareness of the Obzor review ring, said that they were "concerned" about the website and are now actively investigating its impact, and games that are/have been making use of its services. Here was what was received by Sid from Valve's Andrew Loomer:

Originally posted by Andrew Loomer:
We really appreciate your continued efforts. Players have always been receptive to the unique perspectives that you, Mellow, and others bring to Steam through your reporting and spotlighting of the trends you discover.

We are also concerned with this website, and are investigating its impact. Reviews should represent genuine customer feedback, and maintaining that is a top priority for us.[...]

We encourage you to continue sending us reports, as we will always be receptive to incorporating them into our own investigations.

This is a very welcoming acknowledgement of what's been a very serious concern, however, just because Valve say they're looking into it doesn't mean its time to leave this subject by the wayside. As they reiterate at the end of their email, they encourage reports to still be sent and reports will be incorporated into their ongoing investigations.

The best thing the community can do is to continue to flag, report and share games that they suspect are using the Obzor services or something similar. This will greatly help Valve in their crackdown on these games and the service as a whole.

I'm meeting with some of the SotS team tomorrow to discuss how best we tackle Obzor related coverage in the future, but we do reiterate to please, flag and report games store pages that you suspect are using Obzor services, share them with us, and to continue the conversation. This is certainly a win just to get Valve's eyes on something serious, and for them to also share their concerns on a platform such as this, but we must continue to push forward and do what we can.

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Special thanks to our patrons Caff, Stefab and Luke for their continued patronage. Thanks to them, articles like this would not happen.

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STEAM CURATOR

Sentinels of the Store reviews

"Games by developers that have received coverage on our group, as well as identified asset flips and titles tied to anti-consumer/deceptive practices."

Here are a few recent reviews by Sentinels of the Store

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1,418 Comments

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Wandering Mania 19 Jul @ 8:17am

Fawndel Mahjunch,
Spooky.

Fawndel Mahjunch 19 Jul @ 2:21am

@mania
2 times I’ve written long ass replies here, the first time I was sure I did it in notes, then came back and sent it l, yet no record of it exists there or here …The second time I wouldn’t even know how to begin to try and explain!
It was done all here, then I take my eyes off the screen for maybe a minute, look down again - all gone!
And just can’t do it again, I’ll lose it if it disappears again.

Wandering Mania 17 Jul @ 9:03pm

Reading these last few posts just makes me glad I never upgraded to Win11.

But as to the mention of laptops: I've never heard of one that has any kind of hardware upgrade-ability outside of the external plugin stuff. It's mainly why I maintain the stance that, there's no such thing as a 'gaming laptop'. With the hardware demand, and strain, that gaming puts on PCs; Laptops just can not handle it in any kind of regular, or even long term, situations.

PCs where not originally intended to play video games in the first place; And laptops are the worst possible option if you choose to do so. (Dropping nothing but hard truth there)

shade00 17 Jul @ 8:52pm

well uninstall or disable
disables always a good option, but as obey said unused if there rarely or never used best to ditch em
iobit has a good program to cleanup and monitor temps ram and all that
i know some programs can disable auto startup background programs
ones you dont need active
all kinds of stuff we can do to fix up speed up and everything these days

Obey the Fist! 17 Jul @ 8:48pm

Part of the issue may just be related to Windows bloat. Windows 11 is bloated and becoming increasingly more so.

It would be a good idea to check your system performance and thermals to identify resource hogs and bottlenecks.

Uninstall any unused applications and so on.

Fawndel Mahjunch 17 Jul @ 8:40pm

speaking of ram, I just recently found out that my laptop doesn’t even have the option for ram expansion (I never even heard of that) and I don’t know if it’s just because I have like 6 external SSDs hooked up, but I swear my old Lenovo with 8GB runs faster doing some tasks… not to mention it turns into a George Foreman grill after 5 minutes of playing even the crappiest looking games!!! Last Alienware I’m getting, that’s for sure!

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