MMO Fallout

As has become a nearly weekly occurrence, Valve has instituted another ban wave of Steam games and once again it tastes like money laundering.

I’ve been talking about Steam games being used for money laundering for quite a while now, and it’s obvious that the problem isn’t going to be going away any time soon. Back in January I pointed out that there are a lot of games on Steam sitting at suspiciously expensive prices that appear to be asset flips or ports of mobile games. A week later, I reported that some of the titles had gotten the boot while others were still at large.

Still every so often Valve takes a hammer to some of these suspicious looking games. The image in the header is from the game Push Sticks, and it may surprise you to hear that this game was selling for $30. Well “selling” is a strong word because the game had activity for four days in mid-January and then fell off the charts again. But Push Sticks isn’t exactly an anomaly in my research, since many of the other titles we see get the banhammer fall into the same realm of activity. Ridiculous prices, no activity from the developer, and few if any actual play activity. Also oddly expensive specifically in China.

Someone noted that the first level in Push Sticks appears to be impossible to finish, and the game itself might be totally fake since all we see in promotional screenshots are the first level.

Figuring out how many copies of Push Sticks were bought is next to impossible, and it’s not like Valve is going to tell us. The next title on the chopping block was Wear A Rope which conveniently also launched on January 4, also cost $30, and also looks like baby’s first prototype game.

Am I saying that Push Sticks and Wear A Rope are from the same person/team? Yes. Or run through the same horrible translator. Let’s just look at the product description for Wear A Rope;

“You use a rope and a ring to play. It looks simple, but the operation is very difficult. See how long you can persist. A game that looks very simple, but the difficulty is very large, you can pass you Boring time.”

Compared to:

Push sticks – it’s a puzzle game

Introduction – this is a small game of pushing stakes. It seems to be very simple to you, but it is very difficult to play it

How to play – you just need to push the red stake to the exit to win, you don’t want to see it simple, in fact, it takes a lot of time to complete the research

Features – he will activate your brain. Make your brain smarter, and he can also kill your boring time

Kill your boring time indeed. Which brings us to the third and final game on the list; Co-Jump, Fly. A casual game about sorting trash. What.

“This is a casual game about garbage sorting, it is a platform jumping game, and it becomes more and more difficult over time. You need to sort different types of garbage. If you like the characters in this trash sorting game, please buy our DLC. We made very beautiful clothes for the characters. Of course, please contact us after purchasing our DLC. After providing the information, we will give you the exquisite real thing of this character for free. Thank you for supporting our game!”

Steam’s records show that Co-Jump Fly released on December 11, 2019 for $6.99 USD and had its price jacked up to $79.99 USD on January 13, 2020. What happened on January 13, you might be asking? Well…nothing. Valve removed the low confidence rating just a few days prior. The game has been steadily releasing incredibly expensive DLC; $63.79, $73.99, $53.99, and oddly enough $1.99 for “role” DLC that offers…something. It should be noted that these DLC were also on sale for ninety nine cents and were unanimously jacked up on February 10 to the prices above.

The DLC packs themselves are something quite different, being singular skins but with the added offer of a free physical model if you contact the developer.

“The DLC includes a new player skin, you can choose between the default skin and the new skin, and users who bought this DLC package can also get a beautiful physical model of this skin for free. Please contact us to accept the gift!”

I have never seen this on a Steam game. Co-Jump Fly’s developer name literally translates to “Debris Flow.” Going back to my money laundering theory, Co-Jump Fly may have gone a little overboard and flew too close to the sun. The title gained some attention from Steam users after popping up on the Top Selling list, with people wondering how the hell a game that expensive and with nobody playing managed to become a #5 top seller. Great question, I think you already know the answer.

With Valve’s laissez faire policy on the Steam store, there is no doubt in my mind we’ll be seeing many more of these bans in the coming weeks and months.