Steam Shuts Down Game for Cryptomining Monero from Gamers
Valve Corporation, the company behind the gaming website Steam, suddenly pulled a game called Abstractism from its store. Customer complaints and the game’s performance metrics point to another instance of crypto jacking.
Abstractism has been marketed as a simple platformer where you control a bunch of pixels and try to carry it successfully to the other end of the level. In this case, you were managing a square in a black and white environment. All you had to do, was make it jump from one wall to the other — entertaining and straightforward enough.
It was a cheap game, too — retailing at $0.99, although there was a 51% special promotion ongoing until August 2, before the pull. Okalu Union developed the game and published it jointly with dead.team. While Steam banned both game publishers, Okalu Union still has apps available on Google’s Play Store — makes you wonder if there’s any hidden mining software contained in it.
Okalu Union doesn’t seem to have an online presence, unlike publisher dead.team which has its website. However, just at a quick glance, it’s clear they abandoned the webpage and put minimal effort into it. Their official page has a total of two entries — one on May 26, and one in November 2017.
https://www.ccn.com/steam-shuts-down-game-for-cryptomining-monero-from-gamers/