Darkest Dungeon dev sees scammed copies sold via Windows Store

Heads up, game devs: Red Hook Studios co-founder Tyler Sigman reports that scammed copies of the studio's macabre roguelike Darkest Dungeon are being sold through the Windows PC app store.

While game scammers are a known threat to developers, this particular offense is notable because the Windows app store is a high-profile marketplace and the vendor in question is selling copies of multiple games, including Game Dev Tycoon from Greenheart Games and Traveller's Tales' Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, at a significantly discounted rate.

According to Sigman, the vendor in question isn't selling scammed Steam keys or a cracked executable -- it's just junk data and a dodgy download link.

"I think he just made his own .exe that doesn't even function," Sigman told Gamasutra. "It's only like 2MB and it just has a splash screen with a link to 'download' the game...presumably from a torrent site or something."

Sigman added that while many developers face the spectre of scammers reselling Steam keys obtained via pay-what-you-want game bundles, Red Hook hasn't seen this happen to Darkest Dungeon -- yet. 

"Sites like G2A are selling Steam keys somehow without our authorization," said Sigman. "But they are [priced] fairly high so maybe they are doing key arbitrage or somehow got some keys from our comp keys we sent out...not sure."

Update: The seller in question seems to have been delisted, and Sigman reports that illegitimate copies of Darkest Dungeon are no longer being sold via the Windows Store.