Yet refuses to address the underlying problem.
Another day, another shady party using Steam as a platform for illegal activity. One pervasive Steam scam we’ve talked about here at MMO Fallout is the ongoing use of the marketplace to create fake versions of expensive digital goods. The method behind the scam is rather simple. Get a game on Steam, load it with fake Counter Strike or Dota items, and try to defraud people through trade. Total cost; $100.
Now Valve is an indie publisher with low revenue and a small staff. Therefore they can’t properly police their own system. You can even wholesale create thousands of items containing illegal pornography and actual murder scenes and Valve’s automated systems won’t bat an eye.
Sure Valve could say build an internal filter that flags items that use the same or similar descriptions and names to existing items. But that would require preemptive work from a company who only seems to take action once public shouting makes ignoring the problem too cumbersome.
Today’s topic for the scam is the expertly titled Zombie Game, a completely legitimate app released by Professional Horror Game Developer and published by Horror Team. Zombie Game got involved in Steam marketplace scams by creating items that look identical to the Dragon Lore AWP in Counter Strike: Global Offensive. They also created a knockoff of the Karambit Doppler knife.
The Dragon Lore AWP skin runs thousands of dollars in its variations, making it a prime target for conning people. The Karambit knife goes for $600-700 USD. Yes these are all fake items on a video game. A Reddit user posted about the scam earlier today and later posted directly to Valve employees on Twitter. Valve banned the title shortly thereafter.
Given Valve’s reluctance to put any sort of safety net in place, the next item scam popping up is less of a matter of if than when. MMO Fallout will be here to report when it does.
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