I am a former head of one of Gaijin’s Community Management teams. For more than two months, I have been trying to provide Valve with evidence of possible review manipulation and Steamworks access-control failures
Hello, r/Steam.
My name is Evgeniy. I worked at Gaijin Entertainment for 13 years as a Community Manager for War Thunder and Enlisted, including as the head of a CM team.
TL;DR: We have evidence that former employees retained administrative access to Steamworks for more than a year, that awards were systematically given to positive reviews, and that employees received assignments involving the promotion or creation of reviews themselves. I contacted Valve at security@valvesoftware.com on April 8, 2026, but did not even receive confirmation that my message had been received. I am asking for advice on how to get this evidence to the appropriate team at Valve.
There are three separate issues.
1. Steamworks access retained after employment ended
We have screenshots, video recordings, and witness statements showing that some former employees continued to have administrative permissions in Steamworks after they stopped working for Gaijin.
In some cases, this access remained active for more than a year. Here is an example of such access held by one of several former employees.
I am not claiming that these individuals used their access maliciously. On the contrary, they acted responsibly and repeatedly tried to get Gaijin to revoke their permissions. The problem is that the administrative access was not removed in a timely manner.
Valve can independently verify the accounts, dates, and permission history using its own systems.
2. Coordinated awarding of positive reviews
We have screenshots of activity logs and testimony from former employees indicating that, following instructions from management, Steam awards were systematically given to positive reviews of Gaijin games.
The purpose was to increase the visibility of selected positive reviews against the background of negative ones.
According to the information available to me, these reviews and the awards they received are still visible on Steam.
3. Assignments involving the reviews themselves
At least two former employees have independently confirmed that they either received or witnessed instructions from management involving not only awards, but also the creation of reviews themselves.
Former employees are prepared to identify these reviews for Valve on the relevant game pages.
Contacting Valve
I wanted to handle this without unnecessary publicity, so I contacted Valve respectfully at security@valvesoftware.com on April 8, 2026, and sent a follow-up on April 13, 2026.
I described the situation and offered to provide the original videos, screenshots, internal materials, and witness statements. However, after more than two months, I have received no confirmation that the message was received or forwarded to the appropriate team.
That is why I am now asking the community for help.
I am not asking anyone to organize a review-bombing campaign, harass employees, or send mass emails. Please do not do any of those things.
I am asking for advice on:
- which department at Valve handles cases like this;
- how to obtain confirmation that the evidence has actually reached the appropriate team;
- which journalists or Steamworks specialists could independently review the evidence.
Valve does not have to take my word for any of this. A significant part of what I have described can be independently verified through Valve’s own logs and Steamworks data.
I am prepared to provide the complete evidence package to Valve, competent authorities, lawyers, or professional journalists through a secure channel.
I can be contacted at: keopm@proton.me
Below, I will include links to my previous publications containing additional details.
Thank you very much for reading this.
