Some among you may remember Artifact, Valve's oft-maligned attempt to enter the digital trading card game market using the DotA IP. The game's announcement in 2017 was met with groans from the live audience assembled at The International, DotA's premier esports competition, which proved a portent of the game's fate.
Fast-forward almost a decade, and Artifact has seen an unexpected resurgence. Overnight on July 10, Artifact's concurrent player count on Steam jumped from approximately 300 to well over 10,000, and it hasn't dropped below 7,000 since.
The thing is, nobody is actually playing Artifact. This isn't one of those organic revivals we often see, but rather something more mysterious. The only logical answer is that Artifact is being botted, but to what end?
Codex Mortis is available to play in Early Access now, but it's not generating a lot of interest.
There are certainly automated operations that farm Steam trading cards, which can be sold for a couple of cents on the Steam marketplace to people who want complete collections for a specific game.
However, for 10,000 bots at once to descend upon Artifact, there must be something else going on. You can still buy and sell in-game...
