Scammers posing as Steam curators snuffed out by indie dev
A number of Steam curator groups have been removed from the platform after a developer managed to figure out they were in fact scammers.
BROK the InvestiGator, developed by solo indie dev Cowcat Games, released on 26th August on Steam and GOG. On Steam, Cowcat noted that BROK had received mostly positive reviews from players, gaming sites and curators alike.
Two days later, Cowcat posted a Twitter thread regarding some unusual behaviour from curators.
“BROK is currently being mass targetted [sic] by Steam curators sending negative reviews,” they tweeted, beginning a thread to explain what was happening.
BROK is currently being mass targetted by Steam curators sending negative reviews 😶
⬇️ THREAD ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ae0L24ei3H
— BROK THE BRAWL BAR 🐊 🥊 (@COWCATGames) August 28, 2022
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A lot of curators that had previously given BROK a recommendation to their followers had changed their review to “Not Recommended” instead. Cowcat had suspicions about what had caused this, however.
In their thread, they explain they had received numerous emails from people claiming to be curators on Steam. These people asked for a key for BROK, which they said would be used to play and review the game. Cowcat however, was aware of previous indie devs warning others to be wary of scammers posing as curators, and so devised a plan to separate out the actual curators.