A free-to-play title known as PirateFi was launched with little fanfare on Steam earlier this month. However the one cause many gamers will ever hear about it’s as a result of the sport has been pulled from the platform for spreading malicious malware to unsuspecting avid gamers who downloaded it.
As reported by PC Magazine, Valve has been notifying gamers who downloaded PirateFi concerning the takedown. Within the screenshot reproduced under from SteamDB, Valve encourages PirateFi gamers to run a full-system scan with anti-virus software program. The corporate additionally suggests contemplating a full reformat of gamers’ working system so as to take away any malicious applications which will linger.
A sport known as PirateFi launched on Steam final week and it contained malware. Valve have eliminated the sport two days in the past.
Customers that performed the sport have obtained the next electronic mail: pic.twitter.com/B98BFs0WbK— SteamDB (@SteamDB) February 12, 2025
It is unclear what number of gamers’ computer systems had been contaminated by PirateFi. Though SteamDB only lists five players at PirateFi’s peak, customers on Steam’s board indicated that the sport would not launch. If that is the case, then most of these customers would not present up as energetic gamers on SteamDB. PC Journal notes that there was a job supply on Telegram for an in-game chat moderator for PirateFi, and the person who shared that story believes that the sport developer’s account was run by an AI program.
Steam lately launched a survey that exposed virtually half of Steam’s customers are nonetheless utilizing Home windows 10 regardless of the working system’s impending assist shutdown this fall. Moreover, it seems that Valve has banned video games on Steam that power customers to look at adverts to play them.