Cover-Credits:
Steam
In the last couple of weeks, we've seen a lot of 'fake' developers in the gaming landscape uploading copies of popular titles to the Steam store to scam players. The most significant scam was recently seen with the fan-favorite title Helldivers 2. The 'fake' developers posted a similar storefront of Helldivers 2 on Steam and offered the the title at an incredible discount to attract potential purchasers. One of the listings had the title for a 50% discount, while the other had a 75% off. Unfortunately, many players ended up getting scammed. However, Steam has stepped in to refund these players and issue a ban on 'fake' developers.
Steam Bans Fake Developers and Refunds Users
In a Reddit post titled "Steam banned the company that published fake game pages." one of the scam-affected users shared a statement by Steam on the situation.
"We apologize for the confusion. As it turns out, the game you purchased was not the actual version of the game. Unfortunately, fake versions of games were uploaded to Steam that shared the same name as popular games on Steam. You purchased one of these fake games. We have banned the company that published them and refunded your purchase. You can purchase the real game at anytime on the Steam Store.”
These game developers on Steam were trying to confuse potential Helldivers 2 buyers. However, one person stated that Valve withholds all the money made from Steam store purchases. Even if the developers were scamming people, they can't just run away with money.
A few users were also concerned about the potential malware that could come with the 'fake' titles: “Anyone who installed and launched the games, please be aware that it may contain malware. I reformatted my PC because I was experiencing BSOD's after launching the fake game. After the reset, it was all good. It's just a hassle of downloading my games again."
Another user voiced their concern about Valve's security measures and passing of such titles on Steam: "Ngl, it very much looks like Valve was caught with their proverbial pants down on this. Like, I understand that the scam here was that a previously published game (or "game"/asset swap) that had already undergone review was changed to resemble a much more popular title after the manual review, but that just means that that is a hole in Valve's current security practices."
Valve is now facing questions over how these fake listings made it to Steam in the first place. It seems like a developer, or a number of developers, changed the store listing information for their existing games to look like Helldivers 2 and other popular titles. This included the name of the game itself and the assets, the publisher, links, and everything. The high-profile nature of the fake Helldivers 2 listings will indeed cause Valve to close whatever loopholes were exploited in this situation.
