An upcoming life sim which claims to be a competitor to Grand Theft Auto VI is continuing to amass followers and wishlists on Steam, despite the game being unmasked as a vehicle for a dodgy cryptocurrency. Paradise is marketed as a third-person game set in a sunny modern city, where you can speak to any NPC via microphone on the street and get stilted responses powered by artificial intelligence. You will supposedly drive sports cars, shoot guns at people, and accrue in-game cash. But its more outlandish claims attracted immediate scrutiny from video creators who found countless inconsistencies in the marketing material. The game has since been removed from the Epic Games Store, presumably for breaking many of the store’s rules. But it’s still on Steam, and somehow clambering steadily up the wishlist ladder in defiance of its many red flags.
Even at a surface glance, Paradise looks like a Grand Theft Auto Online pretender with added AI goop – not particularly appealing when placed next to Rockstar’s high quality and “hand crafted” cityscapes. Here’s the early trailer for the game:
As you can see, it’s very “we’ve got Los Santos at home”. Many elements, including the minimap, map text, and even the beach umbrellas, look identical to those found in either GTA V or the trailer for GTA VI. The company have even copied the music and motto from a fan-made trailer for a now defunct GTA roleplaying server, which was itself called “Paradise Roleplay”.
The biggest tell lands at 1:20, when the narrator announces that you’ll “earn money and crypto” while the player character strolls into a bank. Subsequent trailers have downplayed the crypto element, and the same trailer on Steam has been edited to exclude that particular word, probably to abide by Valve’s rules on marketing cryptocurrency. The company behind Paradise, Ultra Games, say they’re no longer going to ship it with cryptocurrency in mind but, as we’ll see, the game itself seems to barely matter.
Last month, various YouTubers brought up these concerns around the game, including the fact that early trailers showed unlicensed Lamborghinis. Most chutzpah-ly of all, Paradise promised the ability to interact with AI versions of popular influencers like Pokimane and Fortnite streamer Lachlan Power, among many others. However, none of those big-time streamers have said anything about the game on their public channels. The trailer that promises AI cameos of these influencers is still showing on Steam, but the game’s website now admits that certain high profile streamfolk won’t appear, claiming that “not all contracts were finalized within the expected timeframe.”
Some accusations made by the YouTubers felt overzealous. Buying and using assets from Unreal’s store is not a crime, for example. But considering the many other signs of crypto-dirt, you don’t even need to point to cheap assets as proof of suspicious practices. Paradise has more smoking guns than a firing range at West Point.
Most dramatically, later investigations by YouTuber “Jetro” claim that the company are not based in Hong Kong, as they state on their website, but are allegedly practicing a Russian-backed “pump and dump” scam centred around an app that lets you buy the game’s currency – the PAR token – before release. Jetro also points out that the game’s Steam listing claims it will utilize kernal level anti-cheat, which “will give the developers full access to everything on your PC,” he warns. “For this reason I do not recommend downloading this game at any point.”
Despite all this, the game is still gaining followers on Steam. Paradise had 20,000 followers a month ago, according to game-stats.com, and that has since risen to over 30,000 followers. To put this into perspective, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has around 27,000 followers at time of print, while Mafia: The Old Country has around 40,000. It is enough to get Paradise onto the stat site’s top ten list of “trending upcoming games”.
At a conservative estimate, these follower numbers may translate to about 150,000 wishlists or more (I’m using the calculations figured out by the data crunchers at Game Discoverer for that). Granted, there is no accounting for statistical shenanigans and even less accounting for bots, sockpuppets, and otherwise false wishlists. But still, it should be a concern that such a blatantly sketchy game is rising through the ranks of curation on Steam as well as being shared more broadly on social media.
I’ve asked Valve if they have existing concerns about the game and whether it ought to be allowed on the store. Meanwhile, it looks like Epic Games have already removed the game from sale, its store page now redirecting to a 404 not found.
As for the creators of the unreleased game, they have posted a lengthy and defensive FAQ on their website which more or less repeatedly hollers “we’re doing nothing illegal, promise!” You might expect a GTA-like’s FAQ to include stuff like “What guns will I get?” or “How many jet skis can I own?” But for Paradise we get answers to: “Where is your company’s registered legal address?” and “Are there specialists from other countries, including Russia, on your team?” These are questions a player shouldn’t have to ask once, never mind frequently.