Thousands of people playing this game called 'Spacewar'. Is Steam aware?

[Corsa2]

Thousands of people are playing this game called 'Spacewar', which is mostly used for game piracy. It abuses the steamworks API, in order to play multplayer with LEGIT steam players.
Is Steam aware of this?

[Mad Scientist]

It's Steam, they're aware.
Though some users do actually use it for legitimate reasons, I doubt it's a large number of them, though.

[Corsa2]

Apparently, someone got banned for abusing this a few years ago, since then, no real bans were given out for this. As far as I know. Why are they not doing anything against it now?

[Crazy Tiger]

They might simply have other priorities.

[MeowDread]

Originally posted by GYENGUSZ:

Apparently, someone got banned for abusing this a few years ago, since then, no real bans were given out for this. As far as I know. Why are they not doing anything against it now?

Because there are some legitimate things that use spacewar, but mostly yes its for piracy

[Corsa2]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

They might simply have other priorities.

True, they gotta work on dat juicy steamdeck. But still 20000 people exploiting their system everyday is kinda weird.

[MalikQayum]

why do you care whether or not people are "exploiting" it? are you affected in any ways? is your region suffering from?
where in the world are you? europe, north america, south america etc ?

[Corsa2]

As an upcoming developer myself, It's just sad to see that this many people would rather "exploit" the system than supporting the creators.

[Aachen]

Thousands among millions? Seems rather marginal.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by GYENGUSZ:

As an upcoming developer myself, It's just sad to see that this many people would rather "exploit" the system than supporting the creators.

Though more of an assumption.
If you feel the strong need to be supported or other creators to be supported, ensure how you act & react towards potential customers is professional, and perhaps put a demo out to lure in more players.

[ShelLuser]

Are they really exploiting it, or just enjoying themselves while you get caught up in prejudice?

I've heard the rumors about this game so obviously I used the game URL and added it to my library and I even play it from time to time. So... if you see me playing I must "obviously" be exploiting the system? That's not how this works you know...

Besides, considering that this is a free game I cannot help but put much more trust into Steam. Something tells me that if things were as bad as some people often claim then Steam would have pulled this game years ago and that'd be the end of it. They've pulled games before, they can do it again.

Surprisingly enough it hasn't happened, not for the many years I've know about this game. Odd huh?

If you suspect someone is breaking the rules: report them. But seriously, threads like these are a waste of time and will probably have the opposite results: you can bet that more people are now learning about spacewar; the mysterious free space invader game without store page nor hub, only its ID of 480!

Seriously, it's fun from time to time.

[𝕙.𝕓𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕒𝕤]

It's also a piece of history

Originally posted by GYENGUSZ:

As an upcoming developer myself, It's just sad to see that this many people would rather "exploit" the system than supporting the creators.

Spacewar is the first video game ever made. A fledgling developer should show some respect.
https://wiki2.org/en/Spacewar!

[J4MESOX4D]

Not everyone is a pirate that has this - some games have modded clients that run through Spacewar.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Are they really exploiting it, or just enjoying themselves while you get caught up in prejudice?

Prejudice?

The vast majority of users who are using it, are using it to pirate games.

There is a Zero-Tolerance policy for any violations of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and Online Code of Conduct. All accounts in a user's possession for any of the following activities will be suspended:

Piracy or Hacking
This includes using an unauthorized ("hacked") Steam client to access Steam, attempting to register fake CD Keys or attempting to register a CD Key which has been published on the internet.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519&l=english

It's not ban, it is far worse.

[MalikQayum]

do you have any factual evidence that the allegedly "pirates" are actually "pirates"? or is just because you heard it from someone that heard it from someone that the vast "majority" of users that has it, are "pirates", therefor they have to be "pirates".

[Reggaejunkiedrew]

Originally posted by C²C^Guyver |NZB|:

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Are they really exploiting it, or just enjoying themselves while you get caught up in prejudice?

Prejudice?

The vast majority of users who are using it, are using it to pirate games.

Prove it. Sounds like you're just making an assumption.