The game The Backrooms 1998 has unfortunately fallen victim to theft, with scammers allegedly stealing, decompiling, and rebranding it under a different title.
The developer, Steelkrill Studios, took to social media to address the issue, providing evidence that a publisher named “COOL DEVS” had unlawfully appropriated their work and released it as their own.
A major scam company has illicitly copied my entire game from Steam, repackage it, and sold it under their name on various consoles.
More information can be found in the following thread to raise awareness and prevent other developers and individuals from falling victim to such scams 🧵 (1/10) pic.twitter.com/53ib17dSzr
— Steelkrill 🔪🦐 | Horror Game Dev (@steelkrill) February 27, 2025
Upon inspection, other titles by “COOL DEVS” also appear to be knock-offs of legitimate games such as Chained Together and Liar’s Bar.
These alleged scammers seem to be a recurring issue within the game development community, with many of their “games” notably absent from platforms like Steam where vigilant users could identify them.
The Backrooms 1998 is currently available on PC (via Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PS4, and PS5.
As of now, the purportedly stolen version of the game by COOL DEVS still remains on the Nintendo eShop.
