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Valve Bans Developer From Steam After It Sues Customers Over Bad Reviews (arstechnica.com)
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."
I like those guys!
Bazinga!
"Romine's GoFundMe account, set up to fund the suit, has made just $425 of his $75,000 goal, even though he claims he "received a pile of feces in the mail" and that he had had messages saying things like "Your wife is a whore," and "I hope you die in a fiery car crash.""
Romine is a guy who does not get teh net.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
or is it too much for submitters to write in grown up English and not teenie language
And credit where credit is due, I haven't had the Steam client do something amazingly stupid in ages.
On the other hand, what happens if these paragons of virtue somehow lose control of the company?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
More like Digital Suicide! Hur-hur-hur — I'll see myself out.
+0 Meh
"In a brief e-mail sent to Vice's Motherboard at the end of last week"
So... I don't get it, you included in the summary that this information is second-hand, and a week old.
Are you even fucking trying anymore, slashdot?
I think to think that it is partly thanks to a games critic, known as Jim F**king Sterling Son.
It's nice to see this happening.
Digital Homicide is known for this type of shit. I have lost count of the times Jim Sterling has brought them up whenever they were screwing around again.
It would be nice to see Valve/Steam finally getting up to some quality management and start kicking out the assholes and doucebags. Digital Homicide is a very good start.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
For the non-english speakers a quid is equal to 1.3 bucks. https://encrypted.google.com/s...
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
I'm sure he will sue Valve next.
Sounds like they need to change their name to Digital Suicide, cause that's basically what they did. I have no idea who they were before, but I certainly won't be buying anything from them now.
It's not the reviews that damage your sales, it's the quality of your games. Welcome to the internet where you can't simply sell garbage by tacking a nice name to the shit bag, and where trying to silence those that unwrap it for everyone to see only puts more attention to it.
Could someone explain the internet to him?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
From "Digital Homicide" to "Digital Suicide".
This dude still does not understand even the most basic precepts of law.
You cannot, as an individual without a law license, represent your own corporation in court (corporations are considered legally-distinct persons but because a company is not a natural person, there can be no pro-se representation so it has to be done by a licensed lawyer) . That is UPL territory and it is also perjury because he would have had to have signed documents swearing to the fact that he was legally able to represent the corporation.
The defendants should simply 12(b)(6) this and follow up with a request for Rule 11 sanctions.
> one of the shipboard currency substitutes was the otherwise useless saltwater squid that they would sometimes catch.
There are many possible explanations, and that is probably the least likely. Probably most likely is that it comes from 'quid pro quo' (trade one thing for another).
A substitute currency is far more likely to be something like cigarettes/tobacco or rum which has some value to many members of the group. If you catch "otherwise worthless" squid from time to time, why on earth would you give trade good rum to get another worthless squid? There are two requirements for currency. It must a) a medium of exchange and b) a store of value. In prison (or on a ship), I can get cigarettes from you today and use them to buy soups next week. If I get squid from you today, next week I have ... well I've long since thrown that rotting squid overboard.
Sadly with how messed up the "Justice" system is in most developed countries these days I'd bet that a lawsuit is in Valves near future. If the court has ANY sense they'll drop the case eventually but just going through the motions will probably cost Valve a chunk of change. We almost need a pre-court system that can do a quick judgement based on the merits of the case and toss out the moronic cases (I spilled coffee on myself, I cut off my foot with an axe, my car didn't brake on its own when I wasn't paying attention, etc)
Reading the headline literally leads to a much different interpretation of this headline. I would have stated it "Valve protects developer from steam," but I'll give the writer some poetic license.
I did a little digging. Apparently the developer was getting comments consisting of death threats. They even show some of their website. Apparently they reported these to Valve but nothing came of it. So this story has more to it than what the one-sided summary Slashdot is giving people.
How about reading some Cicero and seeing how litigation really works? The civil variety is a witch hunt against others using state power. It's barely restrained by peer juries who are malleable to the plaintiff's cause.
Someone who litigated against others in Rome was at risk later when those same people would again serve as a magistrate. This is as it should be - expecting courts to rule on vexatious litigation means your life could run out before you see results. If the guy gets a box of poop at home and the equivalent of threatening graffiti written about him, it's just what he deserved.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Harold Rhodes was famous for his electric pianos made in the 1960s to 1985, until digital keyboards rendered every electric piano obsolete. By the late 1990s, Rhodes pianos were becoming popular again and Harold was looking to put them back in production. Joseph Brandstetter took over the company and assets after Harold died of Alzheimers in 2001, and new Rhodes pianos went back into production under his watch.
Unfortunately Brandstetter turned out to be an aggressive trademark bully, suing any website or musical instrument company using the "Rhodes" trademark. He made the fatal mistake of making infringement threats against the largest collection of potential Rhodes customers - the website fenderrhodes.com where fans of the "vintage era" Rhodes piano hang out to discuss all things Rhodes. Brandstetter managed to p!ss off the members and site owners so much that no discussion of Brandstetter's pianos are permitted at all. In an act of defiance, the website never changed its name. News got around the web and sales dropped off. A few years later, Brandstetter was seeking buyers for his company. I don't know what became of it, but the outcome of that fiasco was that few of the new pianos ever made it out of the factory.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
When I moved to the USA, I was briefly confused as to why the Steak and Kidney pies tasted different. Turns out they have steak in over here. (See also, Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler.)
Of course, this guy is creating negative publicity for himself, expounding further on how he just doesn't get the net.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
How many gelgastones... I mean humon dollars... I mean dollars is that?
- Bill Cosby
If you want good reviews, you have to EARN it.
I say this company trying to sue people for exercising their free speech, is simply violating Title 42 of the U.S. code and to be criminally charged.
Seriously, maybe add a troll proof door.
So many companies these days think they are so incredibly entitled to your money.
Wake up, if you don't make a product people want, they're in the rights to demote your product just as you're allowed to promote it.
Actual threats are going too far, but leaving a shitty review for a shitty game? Stop being shitty, there's an idea.
One less asshole to deal with.
I haven't RTFA but will valve be defending its customers as well?
At the end of the day I have a love hate relationship with STEAM. I love the whole cheapness of grabbing a game but also dispise the fact I get no box and it destroys the brick and mortar industry.
Now if they actively defend their fanbase, that is a whole new level of gratitude.
IMO this is all Valve's fault. They allowed DH and other crapware "developers" to game the Greenlight system. I assume somewhere in the Greenlight legal agreement between Valve and the developer, there is a clause where the developer agrees not to cheat the Greenlight system. If I were Valve, I would dig into this, find the evidence that I am sure is there (the games are obvious garbage and no gamer would vote to put them on the marketplace). With that evidence in hand (IP addresses, sock puppet steam accounts, etc) Valve should take them to court and vigorously bankrupt the shit out of them and then rinse and repeat with the other companies that are doing the same thing. Once word gets around that Valve will release the hounds if you are just flipping content, the risk/reward will take care of any temptation to do this going forward.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Well, the entitlement generation grew up by now and they can open businesses. What did you expect?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I was lucky enough to be a 90's kid, just missed the millennial train of self entitled twats.