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Valve Bans Developer From Steam After It Sues Customers Over Bad Reviews (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the justice-league dept.

From an ArsTechnica report: A game developer has been banned from Steam after users claimed that it had attempted to sue 100 users of the platform for $18 million -- for the crime of leaving bad reviews. Digital Homicide, which has released dozens of small games mostly available for a couple of quid each, had its titles removed from Valve's popular digital distribution platform on Friday night. Its boss, James Romine, was granted a subpoena by a court in Arizona apparently allowing him to demand the release of "identification and associated data" of anonymous Steam users. The lawsuit listed in turn the misdemeanours of dozens of John/Jane Does, which include counts of "harassment," "stalking," and "cyber-bullying." In a brief e-mail sent to Vice's Motherboard at the end of last week, Valve's marketing veep Doug Lombardi confirmed that "Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers."

5 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. First Post - Great move Valve! by FoolishBluntman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I like those guys!

    1. Re:First Post - Great move Valve! by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm indifferent to them. I wish I didn't have to use them to play games, but, for bloat/spy/drmware they do a decent job.

      They're clearly in the right here. Kudos to them for blocking a client and any revenue they would have got selling that client's games. Long term this is a smart move and besides being "right" will also help them retain customer loyalty.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. Re:My favorite from TFA... by Dins · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't believe ANYONE associated with this dev could think this was a good idea. It's possible you could have a user or two make serious threats, but 100? Sorry, didn't happen.

    And if you make games so bad as to inspire 100 people to send you death threats, maybe you should re-evaluate your chosen career...

  3. Re:My favorite from TFA... by HBI · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think this guy is a bit impermeable to advice. He needs a stint of inpatient therapy and anger management classes.

    I'd like to congratulate (but not shake the hand) of the guy who sent him the shit.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
  4. Re: WTF is a quid? by Maddog+Batty · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A quid has only every meant one pound to me. 13 quid is perfectly fine colloquial English to me.

    --
    wot no sig