Valve takes action to fight ‘fake games’ that award achievements

Previously, Valve took steps to combat ‘fake games’ that only exist to hand out trading cards. Meanwhile, the company is ready to apply the same measures to games that apparently only exist to easily give away achievements.

Valve states in an internal message that it will use its algorithm to estimate whether a game is played by real people and not by bots. After the restrictions on trading cards were deployed, the company saw a switch to achievements. Some games have thousands of achievements and hand them out very easily. An example of a game currently “caught” by the algorithm is Running Through Russia 2.

If the Steam algorithm suspects that a game exists only for farming achievements, several measures are taken. Players can then get a maximum of 100 achievements, these achievements will not count in the achievement showcase on their profile, the game will not count in the total library content of users and cannot be shown in the game showcase, and no vouchers can be given out for them .

It is striking that with all those extra achievements no real practical advantage is gained. Achievements only add up to the achievement counter on a Steam profile and do not provide trading cards or the like that can be sold for credit in the Steam store.

Image: PC Gamer