I first came across a scam on Steam while we were testing out Data Explorer. There were some clear outliers when we filtered the data by price and when we looked closer, we found a group of games priced at over £150 for what looked like a simple puzzle game.

A closer look revealed that they were all by the same publisher and the reviews, while mostly vague, were interspersed with a few that said something along the lines of “this is a scam”. Needless to say, we excluded that publisher and all the games we found from our database.

This one encounter made me curious about the other ways that scammers try to use Steam for extracting money from gamers and what it means for developers. We found three prominent scams on Steam that affect developers in different ways: fake Steam store pages, exploitation of in-game purchases and, everyone’s favourite insult, asset flips.

Fake Steam Store Pages

Scammers often create fake listings for popular games to deceive users. In the case of Helldivers 2, scammers created fake game pages that looked identical to the real game but offered significant discounts¹. These fake pages were actually for completely different games, and users only realised they had been scammed after downloading the wrong game.

For game developers this is bad on two fronts; not only have you missed out on potential revenue from your game, but players are left confused and potentially distrusting of the game itself. They may be unlikely to make a second download attempt, especially if they have lost money as a result of the scam. People who haven’t downloaded the game may avoid downloading the game altogether to avoid losing their money too.

In the case of Helldivers 2, the studio reached out to Valve and the fake pages were swiftly removed. If it wasn’t for eagle eyed fans posting on social media, these fraudulent pages could have persisted for longer.

What can you do about fake pages impersonating your game? The simple answer is to stay vigilant. If your game is gaining traction and is set to be a popular title when it launches, take some time to search for your own game on Steam once it’s released and see what pops up.

You can also ask your followers and friends to do this for you - Steam still relies heavily on community reporting so lean on your fans for support to make sure your launch isn’t clouded by scammers, but also to build a trusting relationship that could ultimately lead to a more successful game launch.²

Exploiting In-Game Purchases

In-game purchases are not, on the whole, a scam. There have been some questionable practices around this game feature, but players choosing to purchase items that hold no real value outside a game and its community does not make a game a scam.

Certain players trying to game the system, however, is a scam. There have been instances where player counts of games with in-game purchases are inflated by players using bots or multiple accounts. The reason behind this? To increase the likelihood of obtaining “rare” items to trade within the community and esentially make money.^3,4 Players without an army of bots at their disposal are at a big disadvantage and the game becomes inherently unfair despite a developer’s best efforts to make everything random.

Again, this impacts trust around the integrity of a game and misleads people about a game’s popularity. Artificially inflated player counts affect a games appearance on important Steam lists and potentially displace games that are actually more popular. Developers of these game types are actively trying to work with Valve to stop the bots, so only time will tell whether there’s a resolution to this issue.

Aside from bots, if you’re developing a game that features in-game purchases involving real money, it’s probably a good idea to be mindful about how you promote your game.

Not only does transparency protect you legally as the game developer and/or publisher, it gives players more confidence that your game is actually fun and not just a tool for extortion. The UK has particularly strict rules around this thanks to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA). Their guidance is a great place to start when you’re thinking about how you word any marketing and communications material.⁵

Asset Flips

Asset flips involve developers purchasing pre-made game assets (or stealing assets from other games) and quickly assembling them into a game without significant development or quality control. These poor-quality games are often released to capitalise on trends and make quick profits.

Of course, we can’t all be graphic designers, so purchasing premade assets from artists is common practice to make sure great game ideas see the light of day. Buying assets as a foundation is likely to result in a playable game with a consistent style and mechanics that make sense.⁶

Asset flips affect other developers by saturating popular genres with shovelware, making it less likely that your game will get recommended or seen by players organically. Unfortunately, the best way to tackle asset flips is to take the long road and make a game polished with your blood, sweat and tears. Finally, do your polished game a favour with a well thought out Steam page and some form of marketing to give it an edge over the competition.

Game Oracle’s Approach to Scams on Steam

At Game Oracle, we’re very mindful of asset flips in our statistical analysis and excluded them when we answered the question "How many games does it take to find success on Steam?". They are, however, included in our database and viewable using our tools. While fake game pages will disappear from our database after being taken down from Steam, it’s practically impossible to exclude every single asset flip when they vary so much in every aspect of their design. A one-size-fits-all rule to judge them by doesn’t exist.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we’ve manually excluded games with abnormally high prices, but only after close scrutiny to make sure they truly are disingenuous. Like Valve, we also rely on people pointing out scams. We’ve been helped out by reading reviews on Steam and good samaritans on social media, so if you’ve seen a game that is an obvious scam or know of a notorious developer/ publisher let us know!

References

1. The Standard | Steam players warned over scam Helldivers 2 games with steep discounts
2. KiraTV via YouTube | The Most Popular Game on Steam Was A Massive Scam?
3. PC Gamer | Dev promises that Steam sensation Banana has no scamming, after fellow devs shady faux-Bitcoin past sees his fruits confiscated
4. Polygon | Why clicker game Banana — the legal infinite money glitch — is going viral on Steam
5. Adevertising Standards Agency | Guidance on advertising in-game purchases
6. Make Use Of | What Is Asset Flipping in Gaming and Is it Always Bad?