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I frequently see that my friends on Steam are playing Hello Kitty: Island Adventure. I know that this is not accurate. Why is Steam reporting that they're playing a game that isn't on Steam? Is Steam lying?

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  • 9
    Do they have children or girlfriends?
    – John Gietzen
    Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 14:33
  • 21
    How would kids or girlfriends be in the picture? They're gamers. @joh
    – Eight Days of Malaise
    Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 14:42
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    Friends dont let friends play Hello Kitty games.
    – Fredrik
    Commented Jan 4, 2011 at 9:05
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    you can also change the name of a game, my friend plays a lot of "what what in ze but", but I don't think that's a game either :p
    – Sir Ksilem
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 5:59
  • 1
    A few times I've seen a friend playing "with himself"
    – SaintWacko
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 19:24

5 Answers 5

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As Gnoupi said, it's possible to report any game you want to play as a non-Steam game.

In this case, it's a joke reference to the episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" of South Park, in which Butters prefers Hello Kitty Island Adventure over World of Warcraft.

As far as I know no such game exists.

By the way, there's a similar exploit where it is possible to show yourself playing a game which you have pre-loaded, but is not yet released, by using a utility that reports the AppID to Steam. This means you can't even trust the regular in-game titles either. I've been known to "play" Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2 prior to its release.

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  • 5
    While there is no Hello Kitty Island Adventure, there is a Hello Kitty Online.
    – user2974
    Commented Mar 11, 2011 at 13:46
  • 7
    @Powerlord: I was almost certain that was going to be a NSFW link...
    – Stu Pegg
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 17:32
  • WafflesAreAwesome is now playing: Team Fortress 3
    – Joe the Person
    Commented Dec 19, 2011 at 23:30
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You can make Steam say you're playing anything. All you have to do is add a non-Steam game shortcut and rename it. I heard about a fantastic April Fool's prank where someone did this and named the shortcut "Half-Life 2: Episode Three." All of his friends freaked out! Pretty classic.

To add a non-Steam game to your games library, select Add Game at the bottom left of Steam and select the corresponding menu item:

Add a Non-Steam Game

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  • I've 'played' EP3 often enough. ;-)
    – user56
    Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 18:59
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    It doesn't have to be a game. Add calc.exe as "Half-Life 2: Episode Three" and leave the calculator running to rack up serious friend envy.
    – Chris Nava
    Commented Aug 4, 2010 at 18:59
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    The confusion I sowed by doing this and idling in the Team Fortress 2 chat room just before the game was released was hilarious.
    – Brant
    Commented Mar 16, 2011 at 17:31
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Steam is not lying on such reporting, for games in their library.

It is possible to be shown as playing just about anything, since you can add a third party game to your game list, and give it the name you want. It will be written as "In a non-steam game" under, though.

Since there is no "hello kitty" game in the Steam store, I assume that this is what is done there.

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    This isn't technically true, since Steam can be made to lie about Steam games.
    – user56
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 16:40
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    Really? how? I could not rename, say Portal 2
    – Joe the Person
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 0:26
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You can hook up games (or really anything) in your Steam UI. In fact, as a joke, I made it so that when I am programming it will say "Melanie Shebel is now playing Vim."

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As others have said, it is possible to add any game to steam and rename it to whatever you want.

It is also possible to fake that you are playing games that aren't yet released by changing the App id in the config files. So, if you see that your friend is playing example brink before it's released, it is faked. This method also counts time towards the game.

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  • I already noted this in my answer. It isn't necessary to modify configuration, you can also just run a lightweight app that does the false reporting for you.
    – user56
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 16:40
  • I would not install any EXE stuff that interfaces with my Steam. I would rather not lose my account or get vac-banned with shady stuff :P But yeah, didn't read all answers.
    – Lauri
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 17:41
  • @k00pa People keep saying that... It's not VAC bannable. At all. Not even close. I think we need a question on what VAC is, since nobody seems to understand.
    – user56
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 17:49
  • Well yeah. The program itself is not VAC-bannable if it only does the faking. However, if the creator is evil. He can make it attach itself to TF2 next time you play, causing VAC-ban. I understand what VAC is and what it does. My account is worth of over 1500e, so I am not taking any risks. (and its easy to fake the appid manually.)
    – Lauri
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 18:45
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    @k00pa No, it doesn't. The program (which I wrote, by the way) reports to Steam like a game, so that it thinks a game is started when it isn't. The advantage is that I can also fake invites, for example. Your method requires you to start up a game. The program replaces the game, and therefore also the need to have a game started up (which costs more CPU).
    – user56
    Commented May 9, 2011 at 13:29

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