Steam received a formal apology from the man behind Needle In A Haystack Simulator, though he wasn’t the one who stuffed its shelves with hay.
The apology was a joke, but it pressed on a very real bruise. Back in August, developer Nas Nakarus shared a clip of his game about finding one needle among 5 million pieces of hay, and he admitted he had never found it himself. The clip went on to siphon over 50 million views, which was all the invitation the copycats needed.
On September 23, a screenshot of roughly ten lookalike haystack games crowding Steam’s search results made the rounds on X.
Nakarus answered it with the solemnity of a man addressing the United Nations: “as the dev of the one that went viral, i would like to formally apologise to the steam storefront.”
Replies piled on, although one user summed up the mood best when they dubbed the whole mess “the Robloxification of Steam.”
That nickname isn’t some small fry of an insult, either, because Roblox creators had churned out 14 copies of the game within 48 hours of its reveal. Steam’s crop sprouted almost as fast. There are at least nine clones within days, masquerading under names like A Needle in a Haystack, CO-OP Needle Hunt, and the gloriously punishing Needle in a Million Haystacks. Most barely tweaked the original formula, and a few carried AI disclosures.
Studio Bitdot, meanwhile, emblazoned its key art with a red box that marked it as the original, and its Steam page now forlornly bills it as “The viral one. The one and only.”
When playtest signups closed after more than 23,000 volunteers, the team even warned fans that it had become easy to grab the wrong haystack. The real game still arrives later this year, assuming anyone can find it.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/needle-in-a-haystack-simulator-dev-apologizes-to-steam-for-the-flood-of-rip-offs-his-game-inspired-3411907/
