Valve Pulls Fake Steam Helldivers 2 Games, but Devs Express Concern They Appeared in the First Place
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Valve has pulled a handful of fake Steam listings for Helldivers 2 that were different games disguised as the hugely popular co-op shooter to fool people into spending money.
No, Helldivers 2 is not 75%/50% off on Steam. Someone else is using a different game and renaming it exactly like a Helldivers 2 listing as a scam pic.twitter.com/NLy1uUoxd6
— Wario64 (@Wario64) March 1, 2024
Helldivers 2 community manager Twinbeard posted a warning on the game’s Discord that shone a light on the scam.
“There are unfortunately two (three now?!) fake games being marketed as Helldivers 2 on Steam at the moment,” Twinbeard said. “THESE ARE FAKE. They are not made by Arrowhead but they claim to be. We do not know what they contain, but they are not affiliated with us in any way.
“Our legal department is on it and we hope Valve will remove the products as soon as possible.
“The only two genuine copies are Helldivers 2 and Helldivers 2: Super Citizen Edition. BOTH OF OUR GENUINE GAMES WERE RELEASED FEBRUARY 8TH. All remaining Helldivers 2 games are fake.
“People posting as us trying to scam people is obviously very sad and frustrating, and for that as well as for security reasons we urge you to stay clear of them. Again, the only two Helldivers 2 products we market are Helldivers 2 and Helldivers 2 Super Citizen Edition. (I haven’t had time to check the details on the fake store pages yet since I just got up.)
“Additional information will follow if or when there is any new information.”
Thankfully, Valve has now pulled the fake Helldivers 2 listings, per an update this morning from Twinbeard: “All fake store pages now seem to have been taken down by Valve, who acted very swiftly after we reached out. We´ll assess everything in due time. Also, a big THANK YOU to everyone who DM:ed or pinged me/us about the fake pages and games. Together we stand.”
While Valve moved quickly to stamp out the scam Helldivers 2 pages, it appears the problem is not isolated to Arrowhead’s shooter. Palworld community chief Bucky tweeted to say there had been a “wave” of fake games that suddenly appeared on Steam today, a development they called “quite concerning.” According to Bucky, Steam took down a fake Palworld listing almost immediately after developer Pocketpair got in touch. “Hope no one was tricked into buying it!” Bucky said.
We had 2 pop up for Palworld today, got them taken down almost immediately when we emailed Steam.
They aren’t new apps, basically, they take an appid of their existing game and just swap the name and pictures to that of yours. In our case, both games were small Russian games.
— Bucky | Palworld & Craftopia (@Bucky_cm) March 1, 2024
Valve is now facing questions over how these listings were able to make it onto Steam in the first place. What appears to have happened is a developer, or a number of developers, changed store listing information for their existing games to look like Helldivers 2 or Palworld. Not only did this include the name of the game itself and associated assets, but the name of the developer and publisher, links and all. The hope is of course that the high-profile nature of the fake Helldivers 2 Steam listings will cause Valve to close whatever loophole was exploited here.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty to be getting on with in the world of Helldivers 2, including the ongoing galactic war against the bugs and bots. As revealed this week, Arrowhead employs a “game master” who runs the Helldivers 2 campaign like a D&D dungeon master. Gameplay leaks have offered fans a closer look at the upcoming mechs, too.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
