“Fake game” removed from Steam after allegedly stealing over $150k from players

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A game that turned out to be a scam has been taken down from Steam after reportedly defrauding players out of over $150,000.

BlockBlasters, a free retro-style platform game from Genesis Interactive, initially seemed harmless when it launched on July 30th. However, security experts discovered it was secretly updated on August 30th to include software that could steal cryptocurrency.

The game stayed on Steam for almost two months and received several hundred very positive reviews before it was taken down on September 21st. It’s not known whether Valve or the game’s creators were responsible for its removal.

Malware hidden inside “BlockBlasters”

The incident came to light when Raivo ‘RastaLandTV’ Plavnieks, a Twitch streamer from Latvia who is fighting Stage IV sarcoma, accidentally streamed himself being targeted. He was live streaming a charity event to help cover his cancer treatment costs when someone contacted him offering money to test out a game called BlockBlasters.

While streaming the launch of his game, malicious software was activated, emptying his cryptocurrency wallet – including $32,000 he’d saved for medical treatment.

Yesterday, a video game streamer known as @rastalandTV was unfortunately targeted by a cryptocurrency scam while live on stream. This scam is especially upsetting because RastaLand is battling Stage-4 Sarcoma and is currently raising funds for treatment.

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) September 21, 2025

According to investigator ZachXBT, over $150,000 has been taken from at least 261 people.

A user criticized Steam on X, stating that malicious software was available on the platform for over a month, leading to over $150,000 in losses for those affected.

VXUnderground, a separate security research group, reported an even larger number of affected accounts – 478 in total – and even shared a list of the usernames involved.

This image shows a hacker attempting to trick well-known cryptocurrency owners into downloading malicious software disguised as a Steam video game. In this specific case, they targeted someone known as @NoKapRich, but their attempt was unsuccessful.

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) September 22, 2025

Okay, so from what I understand, hackers were going after Steam players who were known to have a lot of crypto. They found them on X (formerly Twitter) and tricked them into downloading what they thought was a game to ‘test’ it. Turns out, it was a way to get to their crypto, which is super scary!

This isn’t the first instance of malicious software making its way onto Steam. According to Cyber Insider, Valve removed the demo for Sniper: Phantom’s Resolution in March after it was discovered the demo linked players to a file containing malware. Previously, in February, the game PirateFi was taken down from Steam after it was found to include malware directly within its game files.

Security researchers are advising users who have installed BlockBlasters to change their Steam passwords right away and transfer their cryptocurrency to different, secure wallets.

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2025-09-22 18:19