‘Valve’, or rather a fake Twitter account posing as the Half-Life, Steam, and Steam Deck creator, has posted a false reveal of “competitive platform” Neon Prime in order to highlight issues with the new blue-tick system instigated by Elon Musk.
Using a blue-ticked Twitter username, the ‘Valve’ account ‘announced’ that Neon Prime – speculated to be a spin-off from Dota 2 – is in fact a competitive gaming platform. “We’re excited to unveil Ricochet: Neon Prime,” the post reads, “our next competitive platform, this Thursday at 10am Pacific time. Can’t wait to see you all on the grid.”
The account appears genuine, with similar tweets and retweets shared on its feed as Valve’s actual Twitter, but closer scrutiny reveals a subtle discrepancy in the username: rather than ‘valvesoftware,’ this account is named ‘valvesotfware,’ with the ‘t’ and ‘f’ swapped around. You can see the original message, and the deliberate misspelling in the username, as highlighted by Valve-based content creator GabeFollower, below:
The account has since been suspended, but in a separate tweet issued a warning against trusting Twitter users that have been marked as verified under the new Twitter Blue program, which allows accounts to purchase a verifying blue tick for $8 USD / £6.99 GBP per month.
“Twitter Blue is a problem,” says the tweet. “Misinformation is so easy to spread and the damage it can cause can have a real impact on people, much more of an impact than a fake game announcement.”
The tweet then directly addresses Elon Musk, who recently completed purchase of Twitter, and instigated the purchasable blue-tick system: “You now own a massive platform and this is what you choose to do with it,” says the fake Valve account. “Do better @elonmusk”.
Twitter has recently announced that as well as purchasable blue ticks, Twitter accounts legitimately belonging to corporations or individuals will be additionally marked as “official” after they have been verified as belonging to their listed owners.