It's Time for Real Change

2025: A Year Where Trust Was Tested Repeatedly

Looking back on 2025, what stands out isn’t a single defining moment - it’s how often the same questions had to be answered again and again.

This was a year spent circling trust: how it’s earned, how it’s abused, and how easily systems built on assumed good faith can be exploited at scale.

It started early, and it never really let up.

One of the earliest warning signs came in February, when PirateFi, a free-to-play asset flip, was discovered to be distributing malware through Steam builds. Up to 1,500 users had their browser cookies stolen before action was taken.

What made that case linger wasn’t just that malicious software reached users - it was how easily it did. Fake reviews inflated visibility. Automated checks failed. Intervention came only after real harm had already occurred.

That pattern - reaction after damage - would repeat throughout the year.


In March, the developer of Containers attempted to use Steam’s ban systems as retaliation (particularly against myself), issuing wrongful game bans against critics in a game with no multiplayer functionality. Those bans were only overturned after escalation by myself beyond standard support channels.

Shortly after, Johnny Ginard resurfaced under a new name and began mass-uploading asset flips and allegedly stolen titles, while also abusing moderation tools and triggering a wrongful community ban against a member of my team who challenged them.

In both cases, the issue wasn’t just bad actors - it was how easily platform tools could be misused, and how inaccessible meaningful appeals were to ordinary users.


By spring, trust issues had moved beyond individual games and into ownership itself.

While the work of the Stop Killing Games movement was still in full swing, some notable issues were also happening in our corner of the internet while Accursed Farms was doing the heavy lifting in the wider community.

Humble Bundle quietly updated its terms, leaving users unable to reveal Steam keys they had already paid for - sometimes years earlier. Later in the year, multiple Steam titles that had launched as free-to-keep saw their game files silently removed from users’ libraries after switching to paid releases, leaving licences intact but depots inaccessible.

By November, key revocations had escalated further, with legitimate purchases being stripped from libraries while developers deleted discussions and Steam Support redirected responsibility back to the same unresponsive parties.

Across all of these cases, the message was consistent: access could be withdrawn quietly, and recourse was limited.


September marked a turning point with Click Adventure, a removed Steam title that turned out to be the centrepiece of a coordinated wallet-draining scheme. Hijacked accounts were used to siphon Steam Wallet funds through worthless marketplace items, bypassing usual security warnings.

Despite evidence, victim testimony, and clear marketplace involvement, refunds were denied. Even after additional spot check Steam Guard confirmations for marketplace purchases were introduced by Steam following this incident, victims were left uncompensated.

Follow-up investigations into BlockBlasters, cryptostealers hidden in updates, and the ease with which developer trust could be bought for $100 painted a consistent picture: it was too easy for these problems to continue.


Alongside scams came manipulation.

Dungeon Stalkers openly bribed players with premium currency in exchange for positive reviews. WUT Studio dumped dozens of low-effort titles onto Steam with AI-generated store pages, fake multilingual reviews, and extreme price swings designed to game visibility and resale markets.

Later investigations into Zero5Games showed similar suspicious review patterns, a continuous problem that we've had to contend with particularly over the last 2 years, and one we will tackle head on in 2026.


The second half of the year became dominated by removals - and the narratives built around them.

Horses and Brown Dust II were delisted for very different reasons: taboo narrative content and engagement practices. Yet each case was quickly flattened into a single discourse about “censorship,” often fuelled by vague developer messaging and bad-faith amplification.

By year’s end, it was clear that misinformation was often doing damage, not helped by Steam's closed door approach when it came to conversations about these removals.


In August, scrutiny shifted to payment processors. Adult games were quietly removed or deindexed across Steam and itch.io following pressure from activist groups, with vague financial rules now effectively determining what lawful content could be sold.

Conflicting statements from platforms, denials from payment companies, and the emergence of a US executive order targeting politicised debanking underscored a troubling reality: enforcement power was drifting away from platforms and toward opaque financial intermediaries.


Against that backdrop, May brought an unexpected moment: an invitation to visit Valve’s offices.

It wasn’t a victory lap, and it didn’t resolve any of the issues raised throughout the year. But it did mark a shift. The same topics that had been documented from the outside were now being discussed face-to-face with the people responsible for maintaining the platform.[x.com]

If anything, that access sharpened the responsibility to stay careful, accurate, and restrained. Being listened to raised the stakes rather than lowering them.


By December, one thing was clear: 2025 was about recognising patterns.

Again and again, harm was addressed after the fact. Again and again, users were expected to absorb losses quietly. Again and again, trust systems designed for scale proved vulnerable to abuse.

The year didn’t end with clean resolutions. But it did end with clarity - about where the problems are, how persistent they’ve become, and why documenting them carefully still matters.

If nothing else, 2025 showed that trust on large platforms isn’t a given. It’s something that has to be examined, defended, and rebuilt - repeatedly.

As the year comes to a close, it’s worth pausing to recognise the people who engaged thoughtfully, challenged ideas in good faith, shared evidence, and stayed willing to look past easy narratives. 2025 was often heavy, sometimes frustrating, and rarely straightforward - but it was also proof that careful scrutiny still has value, and that constructive conversations are possible even around the most contentious issues. Thank you to everyone who read, and contributed along the way. Wherever you’re heading into the new year from, I want to wish you all a very happy New Year, to you and your families, and let's make 2026 count.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Special thanks to our patrons Caff, Stefan, old_Navy_twidget, Luke, Nin-Nin, emigrant & Pocket!

Listen to the Steam Sentinels Podcast here

Check out our LinkTree here[linktr.ee]

Join our Discord server[discord.gg]

E-mail Mellow at: mellowonline1@gmail.com