Can steam games contain viruses?

[Braiboo99]

I know its a daft question but I am a very paranoid person, is it possible for steam game downloads to contain viruses/malware? Thank you in advance to any answers given.

[Haruspex]

Anything is possible.

It's highly unlikely though, and worrying about it will only make you neurotic.

[T9]

Unlikely

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Unlikely and even if one got snuck it somehow it wouldn't be long before it was reported and Valve removed the game and blacklisted the dev/pub.

[Watermelon {JESUS IS LORD}]

yep there was a case alliance of valiant arms had a rootkit in it

but they patched that now

[Mad Scientist]

Very unlikely, as stuff gets scanned. Only once or twice that I'm aware, has something gotten past steam, but one was removed very quickly.

[Your Mom's Oshi]

Yes. It's possible. It's possible for any software to have them.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by Watermelon {JESUS IS LORD}:

yep there was a case alliance of valiant arms had a rootkit in it

but they patched that now

I like how they went from there are no keyloggers.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/102700/discussions/0/43099721371687054/#c43099722102198323
To the keylogger is no longer there.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/102700/discussions/0/35219681578996910/#c616187204120783799
I less than 2 months.

[Tsubame ⭐]

Could, but highly highly unlikely any developer would shoot themselves in the head by doing so; the game would be pulled off the shelves very quickly if that were the case.

There were some instances of Workshop content containing malware but these were quickly solved by banning creators and pulling content off the Workshop.

But if you do care, always read the reviews first.

More common seem to be false positives.

[GobboKirk]

But maybe all the answers here where designed to trick you into getting viruses???

Jokes aside, be careful, not paranoid, just stick with common sense and it will be fine.
No harm asking if in doubt though.

[Rich]

Considering the complete and utterly lack of any quality control, it would not surprise me.

[m4dEngi]

Sadly, they can and there were precedents. Chance is low, but not zero.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by m4dEngi:

Sadly, they can and there were precedents. Chance is low, but not zero.

When?
There was a case with a Greenlight page linking to a malicious file. Everything else like the case mentioned above was a badly implemented anti-cheat. Which ... yeah they DO monitor input.

Every file uploaded gets at the very least scanned by Akamai, the CDN they use.

[Brian9824]

Basically no, the chances are nearly 0, but any software can make a mistake so it will never be 0. Some games have some forms of DRM that some people view as viruses or key loggers but afaik there has never been a malicious piece of code in any software on steam that has actually caused anyone any damage.

[Cryptic]

No they cannot

[Crystal Sharrd]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Basically no, the chances are nearly 0, but any software can make a mistake so it will never be 0. Some games have some forms of DRM that some people view as viruses or key loggers but afaik there has never been a malicious piece of code in any software on steam that has actually caused anyone any damage.

You would be wrong. There was one game that was on Steam that had cryptomining malware in it.