Please read this part before linking a game: If you are going to link a game here, please check to make sure that it has not already had it's CV removed. Support has already removed the CV from a very large number of these type of games. People can still create giveaways for the games, they just won't get any credit for them. There are a few different ways you can check. If you see a giveaway, you can just click the magnifying glass icon to the right of the game name and it will bring you to a page that will show a date next to "No Value" if it has already been reduced to give 0 CV. You can also go to the bundle game list here and search the name of the game or it's Steam ID. It will show a date in the "No Value" column if it has already had it's CV removed. The last way you can check is to go to the page to create a giveaway here and type in the name of the game or the Steam ID. The game has already had it's CV removed if there are 2 red asterisks next to the name of the game.

A lot of games have been reported in this thread that have not had their value reduced. To make it easier to see if a full CV game has already been reported here in the past, PoeticKatana has taken the time to go through the entire thread and check all the reported games. He found a large number of games that have not been reduced and created a table with a list of all the games and other helpful info about them.

Gelweo has taken over and is updating the list of games that have already been reported.

List of reported games that have not had their CV removed yet

List of reported games that have already been reduced to 0 CV



Update: Thanks to the support members who are looking into this. I noticed that many of the games listed below have been set to reduced or no value. Dropping the games to no value is great, but letting them get reduced value on fake $50 games is still kind of crazy. They are still getting $7.50 real CV each for dozens of copies of $50 games. It would be nice if those could be reduced more, but at least something is being done. Thanks for helping :)

Update 2: Big thanks again to support. A comment has been posted to let us know that all the games listed here have been added to the free list so they don't give anyone CV at these crazy prices. I just checked the dates on all the games compared to the date of the first GA anyone created for them on SG and I am happy to report that every game listed here has been set so that nobody will get any CV from these games no matter when they created the GAs.

Update 3: I just want to point out that this thread is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all of these type of games. I stopped adding games to the list here a long time ago. I originally created the thread to try and figure out why these games are being priced so high and if there was something that could be done to prevent users from abusing them to cheat the CV system. There is a large number of these games being created and support has been working to remove the CV from them. There are probably hundreds of these games at this point and I have no intention of trying to keep track of them all.

I am not a support member, so I personally cannot modify the value of these games. If you want to report one of these games that has not had it's value reduced yet, support members may be watching this thread and posting about the game here may get their attention, but I am not positive. I believe the official way to report these games is to file a support ticket in the "Add game to list" category.

Also, if you notice that some of the games listed here are not expensive anymore, they were at one time and probably will be again. I do not know why they change the prices so drastically. The game may be $2 one day and $200 the next.


Original Thread

I just noticed users giving away multiple copies of games that are full CV with a value of $50 (a lot are $50, some are $25-45) and they look like they should cost $1 or $2. There is no way anyone would pay that much for these games and they all have around 10-12 review that are 100% or 90% positive.

Is someone creating these games for the purpose of cheating the CV system here or is there some other reason why they would be created and somehow users here got keys to give away?

I am not saying that everyone who gives away one of these games is bad since I can understand if a user normally creates giveaways for any free keys they get and happens to get one of these from somewhere, but I checked one user's account and they are creating multiple GAs of most of these games and another account that is giving away 5 copies each of a lot of them.

I'm not sure what can be done, but maybe support could manually set the value of games like these to $1 or just mark them as free so they don't give any CV. I don't think anyone would have much to complain about because I doubt anyone is actually paying much if anything for these. The only ones that would be upset would be the ones who lose their fake CV, but they have nothing to complain about.

I just want to point out that the majority of users, like myself, have been here for many years slowly working our way up through the levels. I am almost level 8 after 8 years, but if I knew where to buy these games on grey market sites for pennies, I could be level 10 tomorrow. I don't want to do that though because it is wrong and if everyone started doing it, it would hurt the site. If a new level 0 user gives away 5 copies each of 12 of the $50 games listed, they would be level 9. It would probably only cost them around $10 to do this where it would cost the average user giving away their spare Humble Monthly games around $1200 or someone who looks for decent sales or bundles that give about 4 times what they pay in CV around $750. (Edit: It is no longer just $50 games, there is now a very large number of these games giving $200 CV)


This is just a short list of examples from when I created the thread. There are hundreds more that follow the same pattern.

Aoihana
Art your brains
Ball Torture
BeachRun
Bots City
CHICKWEED
cookies СOOkies COOKIES
CowboysShowdown
Crazy Zoo
DOLPHIN HUSTLE
DonutCrabs
Dr. Science quest
DUCK Mission
Eagle Simulator
Fishy Business
Fortitude invasion
Grot Slasher
helicopter 2.0
Hot Summer
Ink World
The Last Metal Shooter
Limousine Parking Simulator
Magic War
Mechaguard
MOVERS IN THE WAREHOUSE
My Sweet Ants!
Need for Spirit: Off-Road Edition
Over City
Panda Run
Pixel Pirate
PLANETOIDS
Police Hot Pursuit
Puzzles with nature
Ragedanger Earth
Rich Taste of Ecchi
SCALEPLANET
SpearFrog
SPLAIT RAGE
Super Arkanoid
TOTO Quest
Underwater battles
Villwars
Voice Shooter "Pif Paf"
What do you hear?? Yanny vs Laurel
Yuonger Adventure

2 years ago*

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Night Driver first GA in: Sun Sep 29 2024

1 month ago
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Thanks, added.

1 month ago
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Book of Spells 2 first GA in: Sun Sep 29 2024 https://www.steamgifts.com/game/KMlOe/book-of-spells-2

1 month ago
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Thanks, added.

1 month ago
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And are already being abused by some usual suspect(s).

1 month ago
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Really sus that all of these have exact 10 positive reviews... I myself and many others who make real games can't reach 10 reviews in a month or two, because... most buyers simply don't leave reviews at all... and they not only have 10, but 10 exact.

1 month ago
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10 is basically the standard in this "scene". Lately - shortly before most of their catalogue got removed from Steam - Atomik Fabrik had a couple of titles with 100+ fake positive reviews.

1 month ago
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I know what 10 means for the algorithm, but it's so obvious what they are doing. As I said, some real games get to 10 slower, some get to 50-100 in a week, but usually one developer doesn't have 5+ games with 10 reviews exact at the same time. Law of probability says one at least should have 9 or 11.

1 month ago
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I mean yeah. It's obvious for so many reasons, yet still it takes Steam ages and probably countless complaints until they do at least something.

1 month ago
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Others are even faking negative reviews, presumably to avoid detection and a ban by Steam.

Publisher Galactic Geckon is a prime example. Most of their games have around 50 reviews, with just enough negative ones to appear legit but never enough to lose the Very Positive rating. It's pretty obvious from the style and repetitiveness of the negative reviews that they are fake.

1 month ago
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It isn't sus, they are bought.
10 positive reviews cost around $20.

It give discord servers that offer up to 400 positive reviews, which means they own 400 bot accounts for it.

All review scores of 100% with 10 - 20 reviews are fake.

And i wouldn't be surprised if a part of the shady devs have friends that write fake reviews/have own bots that do this for them.
So no costs for them in the end.

1 month ago
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All set to 0cv.
Smythe handled the ticket very fast :o)

1 month ago
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The two firts are on the list and the three others don't enter in the overprice up category, even if this is shitty apps...

1 month ago
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Ok, got it.

1 month ago
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First giveaways for : PACIFICATION LIGHT | FadyGames | Link | Full | $30 | Jun 20, 2024 | Oct 1st, 2024 | No
NAUS | FadyGames as Joi Max | Link | Full | $30 | Jun 22, 2024 | Oct 1st, 2024 | No

someone know if they are sell on shady sites too ?

1 month ago*
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All 0CV, and Survivor in the Forest 2 | Johan Games | Link | $40 | Jun 24, 2024 | N/A |
as well...

1 month ago
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Thanks, added.

1 month ago
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Added Richest Thief | MsGlobal / Remax42 | Link | Full | $200 | Oct 2, 2024 | N/A | No
Marauder Knight | MsGlobal / Remax42 | Link | Full | $200 | Oct 2, 2024 | N/A | No
Unique Identy | MsGlobal / Remax42 | Link | Full | $200 | Oct 2, 2024 | N/A | No
Artifact Run | Sinquary as Rawi Studio | Link | Full | $200 | Sep 24, 2024 | N/A |
Knights Shadow | Sinquary as Rawi Studio | Link | Full | $200 | Sep 24, 2024 | N/A |
Island Treasure Chase | Sinquary as Rawi Studio | Link | Full | $200 | Sep 19, 2024 | N/A |
Deep Sea Pursuit | Sinquary as Rawi Studio | Link | Full | $200 | Sep 19, 2024 | N/A |
Star Runaway | Sinquary as Rawi Studio | Link | Full | $200 | Sep 19, 2024 | N/A |

1 month ago*
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First giveaway date for Richest Thief

2 days ago
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https://www.steamgifts.com/game/4w6Ki/hidden-castle-top-down-3d

Only reduced CV so far. Way overpriced and has been at 99% off multiple times. Has been abused multiple times by some usual suspects.

1 month ago
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Thanks, added, and reported.

1 month ago
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I don't get it. It has been set to 0CV starting Oct. 10, so the date of the report. But it has been 99+% off directly on Steam multiple times starting in May. There's 2 accounts still profiting from this, having given away multiple copies in that time frame.

2 days ago
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make a ticket

2 days ago
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Already 0 CV.

1 month ago
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2999790/Just_Skill_Shooter_4/
Gameforfarm, the usual 10 positive (100%) fake reviews

1 month ago
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Thanks, added.

1 month ago
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This one looks like it should go on the watch list. No reviews yet and no supercheap discounts so far but definitely overpriced trash. Gotta love the throwaway hotmail address for the dev. ^^

https://www.steamgifts.com/game/KdDlo/arrogant

1 month ago
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Don't forget the extra ill-fitting tags... granted there aren't many compared to other garbage but this definitely ain't a 2D platformer with farming sim elements.

1 month ago
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Thanks, added to the list.

1 month ago
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https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/YbIhE/arrogant
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3223210/Arrogant/
Full cv, 35p

https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/ZKdhz/obduracy
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3175770/Obduracy/
Full cv, 1p, but the small thumbnail on sg looks like from the same creator as for the game above, so i expect/assume that the price will do a wild ride at some point.

1 month ago
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Thanks, added the two.

1 month ago
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This game can't be worth 40 euro. Most of the positive reviews are suspect, too: between 2 and 3 hours of playtime and they read like something ChatGPT would spit out.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3176750

https://www.steamgifts.com/game/YNkB1/lets-play-cards-baccarat

1 month ago
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It's full price last month was 99 cents and it was on sale for 66 cents.

Edit: There is also this solitaire version. It shows as a different dev/publisher because they used SRL and S.R.L.

They also have Drift On Snow and Fog Racing Circuit with the SRL removed from their name.

And Math in Space listed under INDIE SQUADRONI SRL.

1 month ago*
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Nice finds :)

I'm new to this shady part of Steam. If this is "publisher hiding", is it something we can pass on to Steam by reporting the game? If so, which reason should I pick for reporting it?

1 month ago
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I don't report these games to Steam. I was going to in the past, but after looking at the reporting options, it seems like they chose their wording carefully and purposely don't give you an option to report games for fake reviews or other things like this. Considering how many of these games are on Steam and how they are not getting removed after a very long time, it seems like Steam wants to keep them on the store.

Just look at these games from Hede. Those are some nice prices and they all start out with a great review score too.

You can get some of their amazing "games" in this bundle for only $10,000 :)

They still have games listed that have been there since 2017.

1 month ago*
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But only if enough customers show that they are not ok with how it is, steam will (be forced to) do something against the bad apples.
If not enough stand up, steam will see it as small enough problem to not invest ressources into to fix it.

1 month ago
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I'm not sure how to complain to Steam about it though. They don't have an option to choose. I figured if I just keep reporting games in the wrong category for reasons they don't feel are valid, they will just consider the reports spam and probably block me so their staff doesn't get reports from me anymore.

1 month ago
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Amazing, how do they come up with this crap.

Yeah, I also didn't see an obvious categories for review manipulation or publisher hiding when reporting the game.

If you click on reviews enough eventually there will be a report option for individual ones. I left a report for one of the obvious fake ones at that Baccarat game and mentioned that the whole game is full of them, but I don't know if moderators will see / are allowed to act on anything other than that specific review.

Maybe we should email Gabe and ask what to do :P

1 month ago
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You have a leg to stand on for reporting the reviews - https://store.steampowered.com/online_conduct/

Disrupt, damage, or manipulate Steam
Examples of such prohibited behavior include: instituting an attack on a Steam server; artificially manipulating Steam reviews or other content; and automatically generating Steam accounts.

In regard to the games, they technically didn't do anything wrong (unless they do are manipulating Steam reviews) and I don't know if there's much harm in them being up for the most part. Anyone can tell those games are skeezy and not worth the money and if not, then a fool and his money are easily parted regardless. I do believe that Steam can help and have there be an alteration with how reviews are counted for a game when there is a massive MSRP price change, like how Steam removes reviews from a free game if it turns into paid.

1 month ago
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Thanks, added. There is some suspucion that it could be Atomik Fabrik's return... (or at least the same methods)

1 month ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 1 month ago.

1 month ago
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https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/mOf9Kqt

Has also already been set to 0CV.

1 month ago
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https://www.steamgifts.com/game/3AiQF/archwilio
https://www.steamgifts.com/game/4OCYY/reharmony
https://www.steamgifts.com/game/sACpP/cutlass-call
https://www.steamgifts.com/game/sFeC7/realm-of-gems

Most of these had already been reported multiple times but they're still full CV. Someone has been level 6 instead of 0 for a whole month now with just three copies of one of these games.

1 month ago*
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The problems seems that these game don't have big changes of prices and the admins need a proof that these games are sold for very little price to 0cved them... (even if it seems obvious they are)

1 month ago*
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I know. It's still frustrating as hell.

1 month ago
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I found a Russian website (Key-Game) that sells keys for "ReHarmony", "Cutlass Call" and "Realm of Gems" for 79 to 129 rubles (let's say roughly 1 euro). I can't go through the whole buying process so I can only guess that the website is legit.

Another website (PlayerOk) also sells Steam keys for "Realm of Gems" for 189 RUB (~1.80 euro), with a description that translates as "Key to the game, which costs 6500 rubles on Steam [Region: Global]". I couldn't find the other games there.

1 month ago
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Many thanks for the info. I'll (re)-fill tickets as soon as possible.

1 month ago
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I would only use PlayerOk as evidence for tickets.
Key-Game looks very fake. They're selling brand new AAA games for 99 rubles...

1 month ago
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Yeah, a 1 month old sg account, that is level 8 on steam, give away games that costs 195€ on steam.
Obviously he paid the full price and not only pennies at some shady stores /sarcasm

1 month ago
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ReRise first GA is up. (Steam $)
[ReRise](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2783380?utm_source=SteamGifts) | ReHarmony Games | [Link](https://www.steamgifts.com/game/Xgo55/rerise) | Full | [$200](https://steamdb.info/app/2783380?utm_source=SteamGifts#pricehistory) | Feb 13, 2024 | Oct 16, 2024

1 month ago
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Thanks, reported.

4 weeks ago
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Are there even legit $200 games?
That quotation (from a mod) in the GA above is not very promising:

The problem is that at the moment the base price for the game has been steady at $195, as seen on the price graph
on Steamdb. We have no information that this game can be bought for anything less than $195 at the moment, so if someone gives it away we have to assume that they paid that much! (unlikely, I know). If the price increases significantly or if we can find information showing it was sold very cheap on other sites, we can look at changing the CV again.

1 month ago
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I think these $200 games are real, but it's because they aren't really games. They charge a lot because they are meant to be training tools to learn procedures to qualify for certain jobs.

This is another training "game".

There was another "game" like this that is $1000 talked about in a previous comment here. I think it is meant to be a tool for a business or school to train people, so they charge a lot of money.

I'm not sure what the most expensive legitimate games are. Searching the Steam store, I come up with this edition of Call of Duty: Ghosts for $100 looking like the most expensive legitimate game. And then this flight sim X-Plane 12 for $80.

1 month ago*
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Thanks, added and reported.

4 weeks ago
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4 weeks ago
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Why not? It may not be a very good game, but I don't think it has been around 95% off to put it in the reduced CV category. Games don't have their CV removed based on the quality of the game. The ones in this thread are having CV removed because they are fake games with very high prices (usually around $50-200) and keys are made available very cheap somewhere. The CV is removed to prevent people from abusing the CV system by getting keys almost for free and then getting massive amounts of CV.

4 weeks ago*
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Does that thing count as a real game? ._.
But, okay.

4 weeks ago
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It's obviously trash and probably not worth the price tag, but unless you find a source to buy it for more than 95% off, there is no reason to reduce its CV and it's not part of what this thread is about.

4 weeks ago
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Understood, thanks.
(just realized all the giveaways were by the same person; I have nothing against them personally, I don't know them, just saw the game a couple times on my main page and found out it was still full CV when I went to hide the game)

4 weeks ago
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Same person and they're giving away hundreds of them, so probably dev themselves or affiliated. At least they're admin of a Steam group with the same name as the dev. And sometimes those trashy looking simulators can be a hidden gem even if rare. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4 weeks ago*
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Noticed that afterwards, yes.

4 weeks ago
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The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep

(This is a "should be reduced CV" report, I don't know if one exists so I'll put it here. Apologies if I did it wrong). This game should be marked as "Reduced CV" with the exact same time as The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut (or whenever it was added to the sub). As far as I can tell, it's just another listing for Director's Cut and should be included with the purchase of the Director's Cut - SteamDB + Lilly Thread

3 weeks ago*
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3 weeks ago
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