10 Video Games Delisted For Insane Reasons
9. It Was A Secret Crypto Miner - Abstractism
Abstractism was released on Steam in March 2018 and marketed as a relaxing platformer with an ASMR soundtrack and no Game Over, in turn encouraging players to get into a trance-like state while playing it for hours on end.
However, the game from studio Okalo Union was delisted four months later following an investigation into its disproportionate CPU and GPU usage.
It was eventually discovered that Abstractism contained secret cryptocurrency mining software, and the developers even encouraged players to leave the game running all day, allowing the miner to make the most of each customer's hardware.
Beyond the sheer deception of surreptitiously installing something the player had no knowledge of, crypto-mining software could also hamper the performance of a player's computer and even increase their electricity bills.
Other players began to report that the developer was also selling fraudulent items on the Steam Marketplace, and so Abstractism was pulled from Steam along with Okalo Union themselves.