Valve adds temporary fix for fake item scams on Steam

Yesterday, Valve removed indie platformer Abstractism from the Steam store. Though the game was also accused of hacking players’ PCs to mine cryptocurrency, the main reason why it was removed was due to “scamming customers with deceptive in-game items,” according to the company.

Steam users have been more vehemently complaining about Valve’s lax stance on trading items ever since. When users reported fake items, scammers would start to notice and take action to avoid being detected. While many trading community admins tried to contact Valve, there had been no acknowledgement or statement.

Valve has finally taken action with a temporary fix. Now, if you receive an item offer from a game you’ve never played or a new Steam game, warning windows for each scenario will pop up. The full fix can be found on Steam’s GitHub.

On a Reddit thread, Valve employee Tony “Drunken_F00l” Paloma also stated that Valve is now requiring approval for app name changes.

“We are hopeful that having to dismiss two warning dialogs will be sufficient to make people think twice about trades containing forged items, but this is not the end of our response, and we’ll continue to monitor, of course,” wrote Paloma.

Additionally, Paloma stated that Valve intends to restore and recover items for anyone who was tricked before the warnings were instilled. These changes will be “hopefully automatic,” but Drunken_F00l added that the details are still being worked out.

While some users are complaining about the delayed action for an ongoing problem, others — including the first user who reported issues with Abstractism — are thanking Valve.

“I was the one that was scammed for the Abstractism RL lol,” wrote PoorAsianBoy. “Thanks for the reassurance and response!”