I remember this game being promoted by a gaming article that popped up in my news feeds a few months ago. Beware of free games. Not saying they’re all scams but it’s worth your time to vet the authenticity. What are their motivations? What’s their development history? How do they intend to make money? And if they don’t intend to make money and it’s not FOSS, what’s in it for them? Steam charges a fee for publishing before you’ve even made a dime, so free games cost the developer more than just their development effort.
Paywalled article, not using 404media again.
Also, the $32k stolen was in crypto and not physical money I think? So I don’t think if anyone has the game installed that their bank account is in danger. But change passwords just to be safe.
It is just their anti-AI thing, not a paywall. 404 are good journalists that published tonnes of great stories.
Their passwordless login system is annoying as hell. I think I’d rather an actual paywall for all articles and a normal password over that system.
Okay, an Account Wall so they can sell my email address. Same difference.
What, specifically, makes you think an independent media organization that reports on privacy, data breaches, corporate malfeasance, and the “dark” sides of the internet,would turn around and do that to the readers their jobs depend on? If you knew about any of the four reporters that founded 404 Media, or the incredibly high quality journalism they produce, this thought wouldn’t have even crossed your mind.
404 Media, as other commenters have said, are completely up front and transparent about why they require a login, and how much they dislike the fact that it’s necessary.
(another company that was bought by a massive company for fuck-all dollars just to harvest its user database): First time?
Dark Mode, LLC??
If you knew about any of the four reporters that founded 404 Media, or the incredibly high quality journalism they produce, this thought wouldn’t have even crossed your mind.
If one could ever actually read anything on 404 Media in the first place, maybe one would know that. But as somebody who doesn’t have the preexisting knowledge of who founded the org or what sort of reporting they do, it’s hard to glean anything useful when the articles are cut off by a paywall.
Not a paywall. Free.
You’re paying with your data.
oh no, they know that someone somewhere exists with a throwaway protonmail account. muh privacy.
How? 404 only asks for email as an AI deterent, and you can opt out of anything up front.
Good journalism costs money, and ad impressions to humans pays while AI traffic costs.
Maybe you do your job for free?
That’s totally fair and understandable. I hate the login too. But it’s a small annoyance to get to read their free articles imo, since you still have to pay to read everything. But that’s their entire business model. It’s expensive to do the shit they do independently, but I totally get that not everyone can pay or can glean the values of an organization without already being familiar with their work.
I realize I came on a bit strong, I just see a lot of people dismiss 404’s reasoning for adding that extra friction for their free stuff.
And if you have crypto on your PC, make sure it’s stored safely, with encryption, as well as a cold storage backup somewhere else.
The article says he is a pump.fun streamer. That’s not even real crypto. It’s literally a pump and dump website where anyone can make a new fake token by giving it a name and a picture. Then the price is set algorithmically until it gets enough people buying it that it converts into a real token. There are no fundamentals or differentiating factors between the tokens. It’s all a scam built upon the greater fool theory. At least different crypto currencies have different attributes and reasons to use them over others.
You wouldn’t want cold storage of any tokens on that site since they’ll be worthless the next day.
But, tbf, I don’t know if it was pump.fun slop that was stolen or a real crypto currency.
For context, here’s an article about another pump.fun streamer: Teen creates memecoin, dumps it, earns $50,000. Regretably, I don’t have any articles on-hand about the tens of thousands of people that are losing money to this scam.
I keep mine cold stored in the cellar but the crisper drawer of the fridge is also okay
Be sure to use archival grade paper!
sounds like using crypto is a huge contributor to even being affected here. Maybe next time, an ETF might be more lucrative in the long run (can’t crypto-steal that) and more secure…
Can someone pleae tell me the name of the game so I can be sure I don’t have it
Plavnieks had installed a game called BlockBlasters, a 2D platformer listed on Steam that launched July 31, 2025 to a small audience who’d given it positive reviews. But the game was a scam and an August patch injected malware into the game that was meant to scan a user’s hard drive for data and, ultimately, their crypto. BlockBlasters is no longer listed on Steam and has been flagged as malicious by the independent Steam archiving site SteamDB. Valve did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment.
There you are.
