Amazon has pulled a number of third-party games from its store after it was discovered sellers were flogging counterfeit copies.

This weekend, it appeared some avid Amazon consumers had found killer deals on some recently popular games. Titles like survival city-builder Frostpunk were going for 90 per cent off the retail price, down to $3.

After digging around the game’s files, however, some buyers found that their smart savings may have landed them with less-than-legitimate copies. This issue wasn’t solely limited to Frostpunk; consumers found similar pirated copies for Surviving Mars, Observer, and Lords of Xulmia.

“Someone took the GOG version of the game, repackaged it with their own installer signed and published by ‘Ace Media Group LLC,’ and submitted it to Amazon,” explained Reddit user CodependentlyWealthy on the GameDeals subreddit.

“The installer looks fairly legit, but the uninstaller doesn’t work. They left GOG-specific metadata files and Galaxy64.dll (for GOG Galaxy client integration) in the install dir.”

Amazon has since responded to the news that its platform was hosting illegitimate game downloads. It appears the company has since removed these copies from the storefront.

“Our customers trust that when they make a purchase through Amazon’s store - either directly from Amazon or from its third-party sellers - they will receive authentic products, and we take any claims that endanger that trust seriously,” an Amazon spokesperson told VentureBeat.

“We strictly prohibit the sale of counterfeit products, and these games have been removed.”

Of course, how these products made it to the storefront in the first place is a valid question - as is the process by which Amazon will be policing what is sold and safeguarding its consumers.