It's Time for Real Change

SteamWatch - One Year Later, Nothing Stopped Hard Shark Games

Back in March 2025, we published an article on Hard Shark Games, the current alias of Johnny Ginard, a developer we had previously covered in 2021.

At the time, the situation was already extreme: dozens of Early Access titles pushed onto Steam in a short period, repeated copy-paste store descriptions, asset flips, review manipulation, and - most seriously - multiple games that appeared to use content taken from other developers.

Some of these titles were later removed. Others were quietly retired from sale. But the developer behind them wasn't removed from Steam.

Since our last article, the problem hasn't gone away. If anything, it has expanded.

According to ongoing community tracking, Hard Shark Games has continued to release large numbers of Early Access titles, with the total now sitting at around 100 Early Access games connected to the developer. During the last Steam Next Fest period, more than 50 additional titles were reportedly released. Hard Shark have seemingly gone ahead and further industrialised their game output of asset flips, but seeing this large output once again had me re-ask the question: what exactly does a developer have to do before Valve stops doing business with them? Cases like Valve's seeming inactivity on this developer seems to further muddy the water.

As mentioned earlier, Hard Shark Games was linked to multiple cases of alleged stolen content, promoted themselves as having won fake awards, manipulated reviews, issued out false forum bans against critics and people calling out this shoddy behaviour, sent me an email claiming I'm "dead meat" - and what's been done?

Following the previous article, some of the most blatant cases were eventually removed from Steam. Steam banned the reviews on Hard Shark's pages and removed the games containing stolen content or that were outright stolen games, but that was it. Steam were presented with a developer with a repeated pattern of malicious behaviour and that was the limit of their actions. I can name many developers who were banned for less egregious behaviour compared to Hard Shark Games. To be clear, stolen games or games containing stolen content shouldn't have been on Steam in the first place, and removing them was the correct outcome. But the wider issue is that this action appears to have happened at the level of individual games, not the developer account.

Removing stolen games after the fact doesn't fix the issue if the same developer is allowed to keep uploading more.

Hard Shark Games are continuing to pedal out asset flips, and nearly all of their entire 98 game catalogue is currently in Early Access. One developer, with nearly 100 games in "active development." But yet, the funny thing is with all of these is he is continuing to lie and deceive users.


For those unaware, Steam introduced changes to the early access system back in February 2025 which warned users if games in Steam Early Access had no updates push to them in months. And you'd think that because of Hard Shark Games' extensive catalogue that they'd all be flagged - but they're not, because Hard Shark Games claims to have pushed updates out to their older titles, but yet, every single update announcement reads exactly the same. Updates to 30 of their games was pushed out on March 5th of this year, but all of the news posts read the exact same:

Originally posted by Hard Shark Games:

Performance Improvements – Optimized several core systems, resulting in smoother gameplay and up to 10% better overall performance, especially during longer sessions.
Stability Enhancements – Fixed multiple issues that could cause unexpected crashes or freezes, improving overall reliability.
Bug Fixes – Addressed several gameplay bugs and edge cases reported by players to ensure a more consistent experience.

These are generalised, non-specific updates repeated across dozens of titles - creating the appearance of ongoing development while avoiding Steam’s Early Access warning flags. At best, it's misleading to consumers, but they've been allowed to continue largely unchecked because Valve failed to act appropriately when they were first brought to their attention.

Early Access is meant to support games that are genuinely in development. It's not meant to be a shelter for mass-uploaded placeholder products that may never be meaningfully completed. When one developer can flood the store with dozens upon dozens of Early Access titles, it weakens the entire purpose of the system. This is about a developer repeatedly using Steam's systems in ways that appear to favour quantity and obfuscation rather than honest presentation to customers.


One of the most absurd parts of our previous article was that Occular Malice, one of our moderators, received a temporary Steam Community ban after posting warnings in Hard Shark Games' forums. Steam Support later agreed the bans were not justified, but the damage had already been done. A user warning others about stolen games was punished faster than the developer responsible for those listings. That remains one of the clearest examples of Steam's community systems working backwards.

Developers can remove criticism from their own forums. Enough forum bans can trigger wider community restrictions. Why developers are given this level of control over their own moderation tools - even when abused - is difficult to justify. It takes just one person like Hard Shark Games to put those wider restrictions in place on users they don't like.


The most important issue here is no longer simply Hard Shark Games. It's Valve's response.

Valve didn't do nothing. That's worth acknowledging. Some titles were removed. Some pages were retired. Some specific cases were acted upon.

But the wider enforcement response appears to have stopped short of addressing the developer behind the pattern. That's the problem.

A system that only removes individual games after complaints doesn’t meaningfully deter bad actors. It simply establishes that the worst likely outcome is losing the titles that get caught - which weren't theirs to begin with - while everything else remains intact.

It also creates a burden on the original creators, who have to notice the theft, gather evidence, file reports, and hope the process works. It creates a burden on customers, who have to identify which listings are legitimate. And it creates a burden on community groups, who end up doing unpaid investigative work that platform-level moderation should be catching much earlier.

A developer releasing dozens of Early Access titles in one day should be a red flag. A developer having multiple games removed over alleged stolen content should be a red flag. A Steam Support member overturning that developer’s moderation actions should be a red flag. A developer sending threats to critics should be a red flag. A developer linked to fake reviews - which Steam itself removed - should be a red flag.

Taken together, these should be more than enough for Valve to ask whether this is someone they should continue doing business with at all.


When we last covered Hard Shark Games, the situation was already bad. Since then, some individual games have been removed, but the wider issue has continued. The catalogue has grown. More Early Access titles have appeared. And the same developer remains intact.

Until Valve is willing to deal with repeat abuse at the account level, rather than only responding to individual complaints title by title, cases like this will continue. A stolen game may disappear, but the storefront remains open for the next batch.

At some point, enforcement has to move beyond cleaning up the mess after the fact. It has to address the person behind it.

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Article edited by HIGH CAFFEINE

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