Steam Cleaned: The Mysterious Library Of $200 “Games”


I’ve come across a rather strange phenomenon on Steam and it revolves around games that look like asset flips and sell for $200. Where do these games come from? Who are they selling to? Why are they priced at two hundred smackeroos? Are they all money laundering schemes? I don’t recommend going to the links in this article and buying any of these games, unless you think that burning $200 is worth flexing on the friends who will abandon you once they realize how criminally irresponsible you are with money.

For the record I deliberately left out a number of games that were clearly for educational/training purposes, games put up on Steam for pop-up events, and titles that are clearly trolling. This is also not the complete set of $200 Steam games by a large margin, just a carefully selected sample size of those that would show up with Valve’s wonderful search engine filtering by price.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

#1: MouseRun (pictured above)

  1. Mouse Run showed up on the Steam store on December 20, 2019 and is sold by an “atm games.”
  2. The game is Chinese-made and its original title is ???? which roughly translates to “Uncle Rat Run”
  3. It costs $199.99.

#2: Strike Mole

If you really want to play Strike Mole, I have good news. You can do so without spending more than $25. Plus tax. Strike Mole is a $200 asset flip of the Unity Store game Whack a Mole and you can buy the package for $25, zip it yourself, and play to your heart’s content. Another game by a fly by night developer who happens to also be Chinese.

#3: CrisisActionVR

Crisis Action VR is another game available in English and Simplified Chinese by a developer (Pixel Wonder) that only published one game. SteamDB shows that Crisis Action VR was once $20 but in April 2018 the price inexplicably rose to $200. Maybe the developer no longer wishes to sell it? Maybe they don’t understand decimal points. Your guess is as good as mine. Crisis Action VR is the only game on this list that looks like it came the closest to being a real game.

#4: LLK

LLK is definitely a pre-bought asset package for a mobile game, of what I would be lying if I implied I had any intention of searching around for the answer to. The game peaked at 6 players on Steam and has never changed its price from the $200, so it LLK is a money laundering scheme than it has cleaned at least $1200 USD with $360 going to Valve as their cut. Who knows, maybe this is medical grade memory testing software. I wrote my name down wrong this week, maybe LLK can help.

This one isn’t available in Chinese but the developer is Chenyun0577. I’ll let you make your conclusions.

#5: NUMBER

I’m starting to see a trend here. The previous game LLK was created by Chenyun0577, and NUMBER was created by rongyao0577. Two Chinese developers with names that sound like a bot generated them? Nope, nothing suspicious here. They also released on the same day. Coincidence, surely. NUMBER had five players max concurrently playing it.

Those money launderers sure do like memory games. Maybe it helps them remember where all their money is being funneled.

#6: Adventure Trip

Adventure Trip is available on the iOS store, and I assume it doesn’t cost $200 there. Adventure Trip is available from a developer with one game and, you guessed it, in Simplified Chinese. Unlike the last games on this list, if anyone actually bought into this scheme they haven’t actually played the game. Adventure Trip has five followers but no activity charted.

This game can be played free here. Thanks Reddit.

Daybreak Game Company Announces Franchise First, Studio Spinoffs


Remember last year when we talked about how Daybreak would likely be splitting off its properties into separate studios? They’ve done that. Daybreak today announced its “Franchise First” initiative, establishing three new studios; Dimensional Ink Games, Darkpaw Games and Rogue Planet Games. Dimensional Ink will be captained by Jack Emmert and continue work on DC Universe Online, Darkpaw Games of course will handle the Everquest titles and be helmed by MMO Fallout patron saint Holly Longdale, and finally Rogue Planet Games will have control over Planetside 2 under Andy Sites.

“By allowing the identities of each of these studios to thrive under their individual studios, each team will have the flexibility to continue their work developing current and upcoming games, recruiting new talent and building upon the legacy of their respective franchises.”

The news gives a little tease into what Daybreak has been working on, as Dimensional Ink Games is working on a high profile action MMO starting this year, Darkpaw has something in the works, and Rogue Planet is working on a “genre-defining” game for fans of shooters. Marvel MMO, Everquest 3, and Planetside 3 when? Only time will tell.

Notably absent from this announcement is H1Z1 or Z1 Battle Royale.

Jagex Continues Hiring Spree In 2020, Brings On Big Names


2020 is continuing the trend of gaming industry names being absorbed into the Jagex collective. Will MMO Fallout be absorbed next? Only time will tell.

Jagex’s latest hiring spree has brought on board a number of notable names to notch their…I’m out of words for this alliteration. The role of head of product marketing for RuneScape has been filled by David Bamberger who was part of the product launches for Final Fantasy VII, Twisted Metal, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and more. David is joined by Ouni Kwon as head of marketing for Old School RuneScape coming off of his nine year stint at Wargaming working on World of Tanks.

Creative services director is now Joeyray Hall who had spent more than two decades at Blizzard Entertainment working as 3D artist and taking on senior management roles including cinematics senior project manager. Mike Donatelli is joining on as product director of Old School RuneScape, having worked on the late Mythic Entertainment’s MMO library of Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online, and Wildstar.

Stewart Stanbury has joined as director of business development and brings his experience of working with clients including Adobe, Ubisoft, Rockstar, and more to provide insight, research, marketing, and player retention support. Stewart will be Jagex’s outreach to external studios for investment, retail and licensing opportunities for Jagex’s corporate portfolio. Official Planet Funorb merch? We can only dream.

And last but not least we have Anna Mostyn-Williams as director of publishing partners. After a career of helming brands from Xbox, Quantic Dreams, and Discovery Communications, Anna will be working on Jagex’s outreach and relationship with distribution and marketing partners.

Jagex CEO Phil Mansell weighed in:

“With the significant talent we’re able to continuously attract to Jagex, it’s very clear that big things lie ahead for the studio as we approach our 20th Anniversary of RuneScape. We recognise the importance of investing in exceptional talent, with 100 new hires welcomed to Jagex in 2019 alone, we have witnessed a record-breaking year whilst hitting exciting milestones, and we plan to continue to build our talent pool through 2020 and beyond.”

Source: Press Release

Temtem Launches Into Early Access Today


If you ever dreamed of an MMO that looked and played a whole lot like Pokemon, do I have good news for you. Not only does that game exist, it will be playable today (January 21). So finish watching that copy of Jay and Silent Bob you ordered on Amazon and start catching those Temtem.

“Temtem is a massively multiplayer creature-collection adventure. Seek adventure in the lovely Airborne Archipelago alongside your Temtem squad. Catch every Temtem, battle other tamers, customize your house, join a friend’s adventure or explore the dynamic online world.”

Temtem goes live into early access at 1p.m. EST, so it will probably be up by the time you read this post. For more information check out the Steam page and take a gander at the trailers below. Temtem is developed by Crema and published by Humble Bundle.

Mobility: Black Desert Lays Out Siege War and Asula’s Den


Black Desert Mobile has launched its latest update introducing Siege War and Asula’s Den to the handheld spinoff.

Siege War is a large scale battle for guilds fighting for control over two regions, Balenos and Serendia. Guilds must be at least level five and have at least ten players to compete through a bidding process, as well as own a node that is at least tier 2. The highest three bidding guilds will be able to compete for the big prize; owning the entire region and collecting its taxes for the duration of their control.

Asula’s Den meanwhile is a side scrolling mini-game which awards a gold box of precious items should you come out victorious. Asura’s Den is only available in manual control mode.

And finally players can sign up here to receive information about the upcoming sorceress class. Sign up for information and you’ll receive a code containing update rewards.

Source: Press Release

Guardians of Ember Is Shutting Down Again


Guardians of Ember is the game that just would not survive. Guardians of Ember, who MMO Fallout readers might remember when original publisher Insel Games was booted off of Steam, is shutting down once again. The last time around Insel Games managed to get Guardians of Ember removed from Steam by manipulating reviews. This time it appears to be good old difference of opinion.

Gameforge took over publication back in January 23, 2019 and it looks like after a year’s probationary period Runewaker is no longer interested in working with them.

So what led to Gameforge losing the rights to Guardians of Ember? Only Gameforge and Runewaker know for sure, but we’re willing to bet it has to do with the gross mismanagement of the relaunch with Gameforge failing to secure replacement on Steam even one year later.

Is this the end for Guardians of Ember? There is always hope of Runewaker finding a new publisher or self-publishing. Tomorrow is another day.

Source: Twitter

Steam Cleaned: Cyber Watch Abuses Screenshot Flags, Valve Does Nothing


Update 1/21/20: Valve has finally intervened and prevented Kartikay from banning the screenshots associated with my account.

I’m going to flood this article with screenshots to emphasize how Cyber Watch is a pre-alpha product and also so they show up on Google image searches.

It’s time for another update to our Steam Cleaned piece about the underhanded shysters working on Cyber Watch. Cyber Watch for those not keeping score is a low quality piece of shovelware pushed onto Steam in a pre-alpha state by publisher Kartikay Rathi. I published my review of Cyber Watch due to the fact that this game that had clearly been cobbled together in a short time-frame had been pushed onto Steam in a non-Early Access state, and the developer has since retaliated in ways to remind us just how shady and unprofessional they are. And just like the game itself, the cover up was lazy and low quality.

Unfortunately for Cyber Watch I keep my receipts. The four reviews posted under fake developer accounts were quickly hidden from public view after I posted my expose and it got extra exposure, but the evidence is still freely viewable to anyone who wants to see it. Head honcho Kartikay Rathi even went so far as to DM me on Twitter offering a backhanded apology while simultaneously lying about the reviews being done by college friends (again, I have the receipts) and summarizing with how he apologized and it should be good enough for me.

Sorry, it isn’t. Especially since at this point Kartikay decided that he would issue community guideline violation strikes to the four screenshots I had posed to Cyber Watch’s community page, resulting in a four day ban from uploading content. I appealed the decision to Steam support and received a response from a Sarah-Lynn who was more than useless. When any dev removes uploaded screenshots for community violations, it puts a universal upload ban on that account for one day per screenshot. To top it off the screenshots have been unflagged and reflagged, renewing the community upload bans each time.

The dev team, a group of college students who act more like a gaggle of preteens, have taken to trolling from private accounts that still have their names in the URL. Take Keshav Bhadana here for example:

And of course it wouldn’t be an update without another fake review, this time from yet another account located in Uttar Pradesh, India with only one game reviewed, and it’s Cyber Watch and a whole .2 hours on the game. This one I presume is an actual college friend of the devs, and I hope for their sakes that they weren’t forced to pay money for this garbage just to do a friend a favor.

Since its launch, Cyber Watch has peaked at one concurrent player. Nobody is buying it outside of the accounts used to push fake reviews, and after this dismal show of lunacy, nobody is going to buy it. The developer is now in full meltdown mode. This is the last post I’m going to make about Cyber Watch as the game and its developer’s reputation are already a smoldering pile of ash.

The Adventures Of Space Comabat Issue #2: The Mandible


Video: Netmarble Announces Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross With Trailer


Netmarble has officially announced its next title: Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, coming to mobile in 2020 with pre-registration now available.

Seven Deadly Sins emphasizes combining cards and characters for special moves, as well as extensive interaction with the main Seven Deadly Sins crew. Netmarble also boasts the return of original Japanese voice actors to once again play their characters.

“It is an honor to be a part of brand’s history of The Seven Deadly Sins franchise that made global success with the upcoming launch of The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross. The game made the initial success with taking the #1 spot in the App Store and Google Play charts in Japan, and we are eager to see how fans across the globe take to traveling with Meliodas and his team when we launch the game this year,” said Young Jae Park, Executive Producer of Netmarble Corp.

Players who pre-register will receive:

  • 1x Meliodas in-game character, the main hero of The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross
  • 1x in-game costume and weapon for Meliodas
  • 30 Diamonds (The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross’ premium currency, 10 Draws value)
  • 100,000 Gold (The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross’s in-game currency)
  • An exclusive box that offers in-game items, including a special costume for Elizabeth, a the main heroine of The Seven Deadly Sins

Check out Seven Deadly Sins on Android and iOS.

In A Christmas Miracle: Z1 Battle Royale Population Spikes


In a post-Christmas miracle, Z1 Battle Royale has received the breath of life from…someone somewhere. At least it’s a lot more lively than it has been.

Z1BR’s death has been slow cooking in the crockpot of Steam’s lavatory for the last seven months or so, so it’s all the more surprising that the last few days have seen the population spike. Insanely spike. I’m talking hitting peaks of nearly six thousand concurrent players if you bothered to read the header image in this article. All this from a game that wasn’t . What gives?

A tournament. With Twitch streamers.

This Friday (1/17), a tournament is going to take part in H1Z1 with a lot of the big streamers from back in H1Z1’s heyday…except Ninja. The attention of streamers has brought people back into the game to take part in the scrimmages that have been going on this week, and it has breathed a bit of life back into the mostly dead title.

Will Z1 hold its traffic up after the tournament is over? Only time will tell.

Source: Steam Charts,