Valve has said that it has “stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers”.
Advertisement
An indie game developer is facing repercussions from Valve after it made a decision to file a lawsuit against a band of anonymous Steam users.
Digital Homicide listed a few of the reviews that – they believe – should have been removed for being too threatening.
TechRaptor reports that Judge Eileen Willett, who is now assigned to the case, granted Romine with a subpoena for “early discovery”, which obliges Valve to identify and reveal the anonymous Steam users.
In a statement to the press, Doug Lombardi has confirmed that this was action taken by Valve over the attempted Digital Homicide “personal injury” lawsuit against 100 Steam users. Kotaku has a good rundown of the whole case, which has yet to be (publicly) resolved.
The $18m suit centers around the members of Steam group called “Digital Homicides”. Romine claimed it was Valve’s responsibility to handle the abusive comments his company has received, including screenshots of Steam’s page as examples, and said that Valve did not properly commit to this responsibility. From what I’ve seen and heard of Digital Homicide’s games they’re of poor quality and just trash.
We’re still not sure what’s more ridiculous, the fact that gamers are being sued over an opinion-based review or the fact that a judge actually granted Digital Homicide’s application. The incident became highly publicized, and now Valve have responded by completely severing their ties with the developer, including the removal of all of their products from the Steam store.
The brothers even subpoenaed the personal information of all the players they are suing from Valve, according to Polygon. The games maker was suing critics of its games on Steam forums to the tune of $18 million (£14 million).
“By removing us they have taken the stance that users have the right to harass me, tell me I should kill myself, and insult my family”. Copies of the games they have bought or downloaded will be accessible via their Steam library.
Advertisement
Jim Sterling, one of YouTube’s many video game critics, slaughtered the game in his own review.
