Scam Games and How to Spot Them!

Over the past months, I put out a series of editorials on five publishers that scam consumers, including Midnight Works, Pakotime, and Aldora Games. Today I’ll to show you how to spot scam games without shelling out any money. Its important to note, I’m not talking about plain bad games here. I’m talking about purposely low quality titles meant to bilk players of their money. And they are easy to spot, if you know what to look for. Let us begin with this image:

I spot eight scam games. From the bottom: Platform 9. Visa Control, Anime Girls Wasteland Shootout, 4X4 Adventure, Drone World Tour, Angry Neighbor Simulator, Mechanic Supermarket 2024 and Backrooms: Spirits of the Forgotten. How do I know, without clicking, that they are scams?

Scam Game sign #1: Pricing

All of the scams are priced at $1.99, with one being priced at $2.99. They are trying to give you the impression of value here. While games going on sale at an introductory rate is tried and true, the games that do generally give you ten to twenty percent off, not seventy-five percent as in the case of Visa Control. It’s a trick, don’t fall for it.

Scam Games Sign #2: AI-generated Cover Art

Scam games will always have obviously AI generated images as the title cards. Take a look:

Look at the guy’s hand holding the baseball bat. It is messed up, a telltale sign it is a scam game! And sure enough, Angry Neighbor Simulator is a scam.

Sign #3: The game’s name.

This isn’t always true, but its a good sign. If the name is X:Y and the Y is a jumble of SEO-focused words, its a scam game. Visa Control: USA Border Simulator is a prime example. Also watch out for phrases like “Anime Girls.” 9/10 those games are horrid scam games. “Simulator” is a tricky one as there are legitimate games with those names, but combined with the other factors, it is a sign.

Scam Games Sign #4: Games that Release on Weekends

Ninety-Nine percent of games that release on Saturday or Sunday are garbage. There are exceptions though, The Escapee was actually good(despite the bugs). But that is the exception that proves the rule.

More ways:

There are more ways to figure out though, but you have to click on the game. For example, if the publisher releases a lot of games at the same time, they are a scammer. Cool Devs released Visa Control, 4×4 Simulator and Angry Neighbor Simulator on the same day. Good games take a long time to produce. Some publishers only produce a game once every few years. So not only is Cool Devs scamming, but I’m almost positive they are a Midnight Works subsidiary.

Another example is that if the screenshots look too good to be true, they probably are. Look for AI generated ones or ones that look PS5/XSX level.

Also, if you have a sense of Deja Vu, as with the supermarket games or “the Backrooms”, its probably a scam. Heck, Backrooms: Spirits of the Forgotten is named that only to capitalize on the Backrooms craze.

So I hope you find this little guide on scam games helpful and saves you time and money!

I’ll end off with a not exhaustive list of bad publishers to avoid: VRCFORGE STUDIOS, COOl DEVS, 16 BIT, Megame, Yellow Ink, Demenci Games, MAGICPROSTUDIO, Pakotime, Pix Arts, Entity3, Artem Kritinin, Aldora Games, GOGAME CONSOLE PUBLISHER, Sabec, 17Studio, BurleaGamesStudio, Yabai.Games and CGI Lab.

Note: Max Interactive Studio would be on that list, but they got with the program. Reddeer.Games has their predatory bundles, but many of the games themselves are completely solid.