For those of you that may have tried to search for Valve’s Steam store on Google today, you may have come across an unexpected message that takes a jab at one of its biggest competitors.
Reported by several outlets and users, those that searched for “Steam store” in the Google search engine recently found a rather odd message with little shapes, along with four clearly noticeable words: “F–k Epic Games Store.”
The image that accompanies the text doesn’t look like much at first. However, when going to the actual Steam page where it came from, you can see what they actually create. It’s a middle finger, apparently pointed right at the digital game shop.
Those who tried it noted that this came up specifically with the search term “Steam store.” It didn’t work when looking for just “Steam” or “Steam games” or something similar to that.
How did this happen? One outlet believes that it’s due to Google’s bot system coming across a user review for Metro Exodus, which exclusively debuted on Epic Games Store months ago before finally arriving on Steam this past week. In the message, the user review notes “F–k Epic Games Store” and the middle finger image. Because Steam utilizes user reviews under the Steam Labs section of the home page, this could’ve easily been connected with the game’s current release.
Neither Valve or Google have commented on the matter. However, upon our recent search for “steam store,” there was no sign of the image or text. It appears the matter may have already been corrected.
Regardless, seeing “F–k Epic Games Store” is probably the last thing users should expect when it comes to looking for Steam.
