'A big scam company just stole my whole game': A Backrooms indie dev has been forced to seek legal help after someone took their game off Steam and uploaded it to the Nintendo Store

The Backrooms 1998 screenshot
(Image credit: Steelkrill Studio)

Backrooms games have quickly become a staple of the horror genre. If you check on Steam, there are hundreds to choose from, which, despite looking similar thanks to their setting, can be different in a couple of minor ways. However, there are at least two Backrooms games that are pretty much identical

Steelkrill's game, The Backrooms 1998, was released last week and has had a pretty good reception with a 'Very Positive' review rating on Steam. The game takes a more narrative approach to the Backrooms as it follows a young teen who has fallen into the liminal space. It also uses a camcorder to add a lost-footage vibe to the already creepy atmosphere.

After the successful initial launch on Steam, the solo dev Steelkrill decided that now was a great time to branch out to other consoles. Everything was going according to plan until one player contacted Steelkrill to ask why their game was already on consoles but under a different name. Steelkrill went to check it out, and that's how they found out that someone had ripped their entire game.


"A big scam company just stole my whole game from Steam, ripped it, and sold it as their own on Playstation and other consoles," Steelkrill says. "They stole the whole game as it is alongside the music, sounds, voice lines and everything else. They only changed the monster and the picture on the frame, lol."

Steelkrill even linked a walkthrough of their game alongside the supposed copycat from Cool Devs, so players could decide for themselves how similar the games were. Although the copycat trailer has now been taken down, there's still a ton of pictures that show a side by side comparison, and they look pretty damning. The copycat has seemingly ripped at least sections of the game; the only difference is that they are slightly brighter.

A big scam company just stole my whole game from steam, ripped it and sold it as their own on Playstation and other consoles. from r/gamedev

Steelkrill has already submitted a DMCA and is working alongside their publisher and lawyer and is now trying to figure out the next step: "For now, the game is taken down from PlayStation and Xbox, but it's still up on Nintendo Switch."

Looking at Cool Devs's Nintendo Store page, it seems like they have a knack for taking popular Steam games and passing copies off as their own. There's TCG Empire: Card Shop Simulator, which strikes a remarkable resemblance to TCG Card Shop Simulator and was published just a few months after its release. And then there's Chained Towards Heaven, which looks an awful lot like Chained Together.

"If you can report the fake game, that would be awesome," Steelkrill says. "If you bought it by mistake, please see if you can get a refund. If you can share this, that would be awesome as well, so more people will know about this and not get tricked. I will try my best to post this to other subreddits to make more people aware."

But the end goal of this isn't to reap any financial awards or get monetary compensation; it seems like Steelkrill just wants the record to be set straight: "I don't even want the money they stole. I just want them to refund them back to the buyers if we can somehow catch them. This is not fair to developers and not fair to the players. I still can't believe that someone as big as Sony, Xbox, and Nintendo is letting this slide. It's sad."

It's true that backroom games can all seem very similar. There's not a whole lot of zhuzhing up you can do in an abstract chain store hallway from Wisconsin that is meant to be eerily empty. But even so, different games can look and play differently depending on the style. I've played a few different Backrooms games, and in some way, they've all had distinguishable qualities. There's Inside the Backrooms, which gives off The Stanley Parable vibes; Backrooms: Escape Together, which has more glossy, realistic graphics and a couple of unique areas; and Escape the Backrooms, which offers loads of different areas and modes. So there's really no excuse to have two identical Backroom games, regardless of how mundane the source material is.

2025 gamesBest PC gamesFree PC gamesBest FPS gamesBest RPGsBest co-op games

2025 games: This year's upcoming releases
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together

Elie Gould
News Writer

Elie is a news writer with an unhealthy love of horror games—even though their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, there's a good chance you'll find them testing their metal in metroidvanias or just admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Elie has previously worked at TechRadar Gaming as a staff writer and studied at JOMEC in International Journalism and Documentaries – spending their free time filming short docs about Smash Bros. or any indie game that crossed their path.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Read more
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Fuzzy children's show character with blue fur but rendered monstrous with void eyes and rows of shark teeth
Creator of horror game Poppy Playtime sues Google for refusing to remove 'bait-and-switch scam' apps that pretend to be the real thing then charge users up to $95 for literally nothing
One of Repo's player characters, resembling a yellow pedal bin with googly eyes, encounters a skeletal, open mouthed face with glowing yellow eyes.
REPO dev says it wasn’t actually inspired by Lethal Company, and started as a singleplayer cleaning game: ‘It was nice, but far from what REPO is now’
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Palworld early access
Palworld studio's first move as a publisher is to save a struggling indie dev: 'This is the energy I want to see driving games in 2025'
An image of Bellanoir, a new raid boss in Palworld, standing intimidatingly in front of a swarm of meteors.
Swamped with 1,500+ LinkedIn invitations in 24 hours, the manager at Palworld's new publishing arm 'underestimated how much interest there would be'
Latest in Horror
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
The outlast trials setting
'You just have to make them think this world is real, and this world can hurt you': The Outlast Trials devs discuss a changing horror genre and an insatiable need for scares
Silent Hill f transmission trailer screenshots
Silent Hill f is no longer banned in Australia, but it still sounds pretty messed up
One of Repo's player characters, resembling a yellow pedal bin with googly eyes, encounters a skeletal, open mouthed face with glowing yellow eyes.
REPO dev says it wasn’t actually inspired by Lethal Company, and started as a singleplayer cleaning game: ‘It was nice, but far from what REPO is now’
Uplifted chimp Penn and cyber-rat Trip in the key art for Animal Use Protocol
Animal Use Protocol's dysfunctional chimp-rat alliance drags the Stasis series into a horrible new first-person era
A woman with short hair stands next to a pot plant, provocatively
GOG's version of Silent Hill 4 has been updated with missing content from the original console game
Latest in News
Kinich, a character in Genshin Impact, stands prepared to brawl with an enemy.
'Diabolical': Genshin Impact's English cast gives new VO the cold shoulder after he frames replacing a striking actor as an 'opportunity to carry the flame'
An image of Alan Wake from Alan Wake 2's rock opera-style song, Herald of Darkness, lifting a hand to the sky while the other bundles on his chest.
Epic’s 2025 Spring Sale kicks off with some big discounts on recent hits and a pair of cat-themed giveaways
An army of Grand Cathay, including infantry, cavalry, and warmachines, from the tabletop wargame Warhammer: The Old World.
After a not-so-subtle tease 2 months ago, and 4 years since it was originally announced, Grand Cathay from Total War: Warhammer 3 is finally coming to the tabletop wargame
1X Technologies humanoid robot, the Neo Gamma, standing alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Huang is wearing an ERL-made studded leather jacket.
Humanoid robot Neo Gamma gifts Nvidia CEO a studded leather jacket and may even be able to one day wash up a cup without dropping it
Crysis hero Prophet running down a beach while under fire
Crysis Remastered Trilogy activates maximum value mode as upgraded version of the legendary, hardware-crushing FPS series is currently 60% off
A goblin with sharp teeth, wearing goggles, lets out a mischievous cackle in WoW's latest patch: Undermine(d).
World of Warcraft's started swiping good ideas from one of its most popular user-made UI addons, and it's honestly about time