{"id":54771,"date":"2025-12-11T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=54771"},"modified":"2025-12-10T18:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:14:10","slug":"installing-two-steam-games-with-the-same-name-can-cause-the-other-to-get-overwritten-users-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/installing-two-steam-games-with-the-same-name-can-cause-the-other-to-get-overwritten-users-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Installing two Steam games with the same name can cause the other to get overwritten, users report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently, a new bug on Steam regarding two games with the exact same name was discovered on the platform\u2019s dedicated subreddit. As reported by Reddit user maciej0s123<\/a>, there are two games named \u201cSynergy\u201d on Steam, and both of them share the same install directory. What\u2019s more, after the second game is installed, it overwrites the .exe file of the already existing Synergy executable in the folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Synergy refers to Leikir Studio\u2019s 2025 city management game, while the other one is a free community-made mod for Half-Life 2 which has been online for almost 20 years. As the original poster explained<\/a>, after installing the 2025 city building sim first, and then the Half-Life 2 mod, \u201ctrying to launch the former game will result in the latter attempting to launch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image courtesy of Reddit user maciej0s123<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But why does this happen in the first place? The most likely cause is that Steam doesn\u2019t secure dedicated installation directories for its games \u2013 in other words, there is no guarantee that folder names won\u2019t overlap. While each of Steam\u2019s apps is represented by a unique identification number called App ID (the number you see in Steam games\u2019 URLs), it\u2019s the developers who get to freely decide how the installation folder for their game will be named. Most titles simply use the game\u2019s original name, which rarely causes issues. But in cases when the game names are identical, it seems to be pretty easy for overwriting issues to occur unless the developers themselves don\u2019t take measures to avoid overlaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Synergy
Synergy (Town building game)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Synergy
Synergy (Half-life 2 mod)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many platforms like the Microsoft Store, Google Play store and Apple\u2019s App Store assign installation directories based on the IDs of each of the downloaded apps. This means that, even if two or more applications\u2019 names overlap, they will be sent to separate folders based on their identification number. On the other hand, Steam was originally made as a means to distribute and manage games developed on Valve\u2019s Source Engine, so it\u2019s somewhat logical that it wasn\u2019t designed to prevent folder names from overlapping. However, Steam has since grown into a global platform, and with that in mind, it makes sense that revising the system now wouldn\u2019t be realistic. If Valve actually made any changes to the system, there\u2019s a huge potential risk of new problems arising as a consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original poster seems to have contacted Steam Support <\/a>about the issue, though they received a rather vague response, with the support agent stating that they cannot provide any information on upcoming or planned fixes. As a temporary fix, many commenters on Reddit suggested manually renaming the folders on PC and changing the installdir values in the steamapps folders after installing the first game. Luckily, there aren\u2019t that many games with overlapping titles existing on Steam right now, though as the platform is steadily expanding its roster of games (especially indie titles), similar issues might end up becoming more apparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related articles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Games on Steam can no longer be updated with NSFW content post-launch, but \u201cValve isn\u2019t the problem,\u201d developer says\u00a0
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bug was discovered upon a Reddit user’s attempt to install Synergy (Half-Life 2 mod) after Synergy (Town-building game).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":54777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-54771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-global-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nInstalling two Steam games with the same name can cause the other to get overwritten, users report - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The bug was discovered upon a Reddit user's attempt to install Synergy (Half-Life 2 mod) after Synergy (Town-building game).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/installing-two-steam-games-with-the-same-name-can-cause-the-other-to-get-overwritten-users-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Installing two Steam games with the same name can cause the other to get overwritten, users report - 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