False shop pages for Helldivers 2 and Palworld are increasingly appearing on Steam, using the names of the real developers.
What kind of games are these?
- Helldivers 2 and Palworld are two successful games released in 2024, impressing with remarkably high player numbers on Steam.
- Helldivers 2 is an action-packed co-op shooter filled with satirical humor, reaching a peak of 458,709 players on Steam (via SteamDB).
- Palworld is a survival game where you can catch and breed Pokémon-like monsters to battle and have them work for you. It’s also known as “the Pokémon with guns” and peaked at 2,101,867 concurrent players (via SteamDB).
Scammers create fake Steam pages with the names of the developers
What are these fake versions? Both Helldivers 2 and Palworld had fake versions on Steam. The scammers created Steam pages using images, texts, and videos from the original games, even using the names of the respective publishers and developers, and offered their titles at a reduced price.
For example, the Steam page of a game called “Stolen Mushrooms” was renamed to “Palworld” and listed “Pocketpair” as the publisher. The scammers listed the price at $49.99, which was “reduced” to $2.49.
A screenshot of the fake Palworld was shared on Reddit and subsequently reported by players as a scam to Steam. The Steam page for “Stolen Mushrooms” is no longer available, but you can still view the change history of the page on SteamDB.
Several fake versions of Arrowhead’s co-op shooter “Helldivers 2” also exist on Steam. Here too, the scammers provided the names of the developers and publishers and embellished their fake with content from the real page.
The two fake “Helldivers 2” shop pages still exist, but Steam has already taken a first step and prohibited the sale. We intentionally refrain from spreading links to the fake versions here. However, you can view a screenshot of the “games” on Reddit:
How to recognize scammers on Steam
Here you can buy the real games: Before we show you what to look out for to distinguish the real games from the scammers’ pages, we provide you with the correct Steam pages. Here you can safely purchase Palworld and Helldivers 2.
What should you look out for to protect yourself from scammers on Steam? Since the scammers forge the names of the publishers and developers, you need to look a little closer at the respective Steam pages. There are a few clues that show you which Steam page is the real one.
For example, look at:
- The number of user reviews
- The release date
- Whether your friends have played the game
A new fake Steam page should have significantly fewer user reviews than the original. For Helldivers 2, there are a total of 159,487, and for Palworld, there are 235,927 (as of March 1, 2024). The fake Steam pages for Helldivers 2 have only 44 and 16 reviews.
Furthermore, the fake versions of Helldivers 2 and Palworld list November 4, 2023, as the release date. However, the real Helldivers 2 was released on February 8, 2024, and the real Palworld on January 19, 2024.
Moreover, only the real game will show you if your friends are playing it on Steam. So if you know someone who is playing Helldivers 2, they should appear there. However, discuss this with your Steam friends if you’re unsure to ensure they haven’t bought the scam.
Other games like Escape from Tarkov are also affected
Even though you currently cannot buy the fake versions of Palworld and Helldivers 2 because Steam has reacted, you should be attentive when purchasing games on Steam at the moment. During our research, we also came across a fake page of the extraction shooter Escape from Tarkov through Reddit.
In the case of Escape from Tarkov, Steam reacted very quickly, but the name of the real developer was also provided on the fake Steam page.
Escape from Tarkov is not available on Steam, but only through the developer studio Battlestate Games’ own launcher: How can I play Escape from Tarkov and where can I buy it?
