diff --git a/src/BizHawk.Client.Common/Api/HttpCommunication.cs b/src/BizHawk.Client.Common/Api/HttpCommunication.cs
index 8a047c9115..a689d063ee 100644
--- a/src/BizHawk.Client.Common/Api/HttpCommunication.cs
+++ b/src/BizHawk.Client.Common/Api/HttpCommunication.cs
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.Common
 			_takeScreenshotCallback = takeScreenshotCallback;
 			GetUrl = getURL;
 			PostUrl = postURL;
-			_client.DefaultRequestHeaders.UserAgent.ParseAdd($"BizHawk/{VersionInfo.GetEmuVersion()}");
+			_client.DefaultRequestHeaders.UserAgent.ParseAdd(VersionInfo.UserAgentEscaped);
 		}
 
 		public string ExecGet(string url = null) => Get(url ?? GetUrl).Result;
diff --git a/src/BizHawk.Common/VersionInfo.cs b/src/BizHawk.Common/VersionInfo.cs
index 00914e13cb..f3214d61ae 100644
--- a/src/BizHawk.Common/VersionInfo.cs
+++ b/src/BizHawk.Common/VersionInfo.cs
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ namespace BizHawk.Common
 
 		public static readonly string BizHawkContributorsListURI = "https://github.com/TASEmulators/BizHawk/graphs/contributors";
 
+		public static readonly string UserAgentEscaped;
+
 		static VersionInfo()
 		{
 			var path = Path.Combine(
@@ -37,6 +39,7 @@ namespace BizHawk.Common
 					CustomBuildString = lines[0];
 				}
 			}
+			UserAgentEscaped = $"BizHawk/{MainVersion}{(DeveloperBuild ? "-dev" : string.Empty)}";
 		}
 
 		public static (string Label, string TargetURI) GetGitCommitLink()