The Nintendo eShop has been experiencing a sad trend. With constant copycat titles and AI, Nintendo’s online services have been overflowing with plagiarized, repackaged games intended to make deceitful publishers a quick buck.
This is all the more disheartening to hear directly from an indie developer. In a lengthy Reddit post, the solo indie developer Steelkrill announced that their game The Backrooms 1998, which just recently was fully released on Steam and all other major platforms, has been illegally copied and republished.
Luckily, the scam game, titled Backrooms Horror Escape, was removed from the Xbox and PlayStation digital storefronts. Still, rather surprisingly, it has remained available for purchase on the Nintendo eShop, maintaining Nintendo’s reputation for slow decision-making.
If you’re still unsure whether this game truly is an “exact 1:1 copy” like Steelkrill describes, below are a few of the most damaging comparison images among many others they have posted on Imgur.
The Backrooms 1998's copycat game, Backrooms Horror Escape, was developed and published by COOL DEVS S.R.L, a publisher of many other fishy-looking scam titles that utilize AI assets and cover art.
One of their latest scams, TCG Empire: Card Shop Simulator, takes clear inspiration from...
