This Game Does Not Exist

Submission 5,549

Part of a series on Gimmick Accounts. [View Related Entries]

Overview

This Game Does Not Exist or @thegamesarefake is a gimmick account on Twitter that posts screenshots and videos from realistic-looking video games that don't actually exist. The account began posting in May 2022 and gained over 85,000 followers in six months.

Online History

On May 28th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @thegamesarefake, aka "This Game Does Not Exist," posted their first screenshot of a game that doesn't exist, submitted by Twitter user @AccurateIsaiah, garnering over 220 likes in five months (shown below, left) The screenshot somewhat resembles Minecraft. The account posted five more user-submitted fake video game screenshots to Twitter^[2] that day, the most popular gaining over 200 likes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

The account also posts videos of non-existent games. On June 6th, the Twitter^[3] account posted footage of a non-existent first-person game, showing the player moving, garnering over 7,300 views and 480 likes in five months. On June 13th, the account posted similar footage to Twitter^[4] from a game that looks almost the same, garnering over 3,700 likes and 41,000 views in five months (shown below).

On June 15th, 2022, the Twitter^[5] account posted another video of a fake game, garnering over 13,000 likes and 135,000 views in the same rough span of time (shown below). On June 17th, the account opened a YouTube^[6] channel, thegamesarefake.

On July 10th, the account posted^[7] a screenshot of a fake game that garnered over 16,000 likes in four months (shown below, left). They posted a video of the non-existent game to Twitter^[8] the next day, garnering over 63,000 views. On July 29th, the account posted a screenshot of a fake anime-inspired dungeon-crawling game to Twitter,^[9] garnering over 7,900 likes in four months (shown below, right).

On September 2nd, the account posted an image of a fake game to Twitter^[10] that gained over 58,000 likes and 2,300 retweets in two months (shown below). On October 4th, they posted screenshots from what appears to be a fake horror Super Mario game, garnering over 14,000 likes in a month.^[11]

On October 24th, 2022, the account posted^[12] an image of a fake retro FPS game showing goblins running through a field, garnering over 14,000 likes in just over a week (shown below, left). On October 31st, they posted^[13] an image of a fake horror maze game, garnering over 47,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).