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Update, July 30: Alleged cryptojacking and item scamming game Abstractism has been removed from Steam, along with at least three companies associated with it.

According to numerous user investigations, Steam title Abstractism is guilty of appropriating your CPU resources for unannounced cryptocurrency mining, and selling marketplace items intended to look deceptively like goods from popular games like Team Fortress 2. Or rather, it was - as Valve has now removed the offending title from Steam.

A number of suspicious reports about Abstractism came in over the past weekend, and the game disappeared from the store earlier today - along with developer Okalo Union. A Valve representative tells us via email that the company has has "removed Abstractism and banned its developer from Steam for shipping unauthorized code, trolling with content, and scamming customers with deceptive in-game items."

Abstractism is cheap, but the best free games on Steam are cheaper.

The listed publisher, dead.team is also nowhere to be found on Steam now, though its history remains thanks to SteamSpy. The company also published a game called dead_file.exe last year, a narrative platformer from developer Saddletrip. That game, along with Saddletrip, has been similarly been scrubbed from the store.

A thorough breakdown of Abstractism's alleged misconduct came courtesy of YouTuber SidAlpha. The item trading ploy was raised on the TF2 forums by PoorAsianBoy, who claims to be "a reputable and experienced" item trader with at least three years of experience. Nonetheless, they were hoodwinked by an item on the Steam marketplace that looked identical to a rare TF2 Rocket Launcher in its thumbnail and description. Only a small icon reveals that it dropped from Abstractism, not TF2.

As SidAlpha explains, the Abstractism devs appear to have tried to cover their tracks by changing its details (though the URL still leads to an item associated with the game).

from PCGamesN https://ift.tt/2K7gBx5