Paranautical Activity dev threatens to kill Gabe Newell, gets thrown off Steam

[geo]

Paranautical Activity became a fully released game. Steam didn't do it in a timely fashion, so the game dev threatened to kill King Gaben and the game was thrown off of Steam. Sure those that own it can still download it, but there's no Steam page for it, just a forum.

http://www.pcgamer.com/paranautical-activity-removed-from-steam-following-developer-outburst/

http://www.pcgamer.com/paranautical-activity-developer-resigns-over-gabe-newell-death-threat/

Anyone see this as censorship instead of just calling the cops on the dev? Or is it justified?

We all have stressful days and make them worse by saying things we don't mean then quickly saying my account was hacked.

The dev has now sold his share of the company.

The game was funded with $12,000 last year at around this time on Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1125357480/paranautical-activity-old-school-fps-meets-rogueli

side note: Congrats to Carn for managing to fully release a game and keep it on Steam longer than this guy did with Paranautical Activity.

[Carnevil]

We actually had the same problem he was so upset about, too. For a while it was saying "Early Access Now Available" in the main carousel on the front page - despite it being released fully hours earlier. I chalked it up to their databases taking some time to update and didn't lash out over it. Sure enough, before long it took care of itself. As they say, cooler heads will prevail.

[geo]

Valve moves very slowly. They probably had to have a human flip a switch or click on something.

[Fulgrim]

Instead of resorting to childish insults and death threats, he should have handled the situation like an adult.

[Scripten]

Gonna put this out there: Pulling a game from your store is NOT censorship. I am totally with Valve on this. You don't act like that and expect to maintain a business relationship with the person you struck out toward.

[geo]

Satyr000 said:

Instead of resorting to childish insults and death threats, he should have handled the situation like an adult.

Or waited... Sometimes the best solution is to do nothing.

And yes I'm with Valve too.

[printz]

Serves him right. I'm tired of badly tempered idiots acting like they're dying tomorrow or something.

[Mr. Freeze]

What a manchild.

[geo]

printz said:

Serves him right. I'm tired of badly tempered idiots acting like they're dying tomorrow or something.

Until you find out this was his way to pay for chemotherapy. It was either game design or making meth.

[Platinum Shell]

geo said:

Until you find out this was his way to pay for chemotherapy. It was either game design or making meth.

Not an excuse to threaten someone's life, even if they're one of the least likely people to carry it out. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

[dew]

geo said:

pay for chemotherapy

Pfffft. Murcans.

[geekmarine]

Probably should still call the cops, but it's totally justified. I can't expect anyone to continue hosting a game after the developer threatened your life, regardless of how absurd the threat was. I don't even see why censorship was brought up - the very least you can do in a situation like this is sever business ties. And Carn, way to be a total professional and not resort to death threats to get your problems resolved - apparently that's now become an achievement (not a sleight against you, just baffled that any conflict of this nature would come to this).

[Breezeep]

[fraggle]

geo said:

Anyone see this as censorship instead of just calling the cops on the dev?

No. Not in the slightest.

Informal as releasing indie game development is, releasing something on Steam is ultimately a professional business deal. You're doing business with Steam so that they can sell your game for you. Imagine if you were working with someone and publicly stated that you were going to murder them. It's pretty much top of the scale of "unprofessional behavior". People get summarily fired for that kind of shit. In this case he wasn't working for Steam so they did the equivalent and removed his game. They're perfectly entitled to do business (or not) with whoever they like.

I'd hope that a company like Steam might be understanding enough to accept an apology if he made it. But judging from his Twitter page I don't see any evidence that he's even done that. Isn't that the obvious step to take when you realise what a colossally fucking stupid thing you've done? Instead it seems like his partner has had to apologise on his behalf and distance himself from what happened.

It sounds like the guy has had to resign his role and sell his half of the business. I don't really have much sympathy for him. But I hope that this experience teaches him something and that he'll learn from it and become a better person as a result.

[doomgargoyle]

Valve is the company, steam is just the moniker. Meh, I dont care about either side of this. Valve probably wouldnt have done that if they were not the number one digital distributor.

[Avoozl]

In a ways it's proof that valve doesn't give a shit as long as they make their money.

[Doomkid]

Hmm... That just might have been a bit of an overreaction. What a retard.

[GreyGhost]

Dev gets steamed, decides to vent, but opens the wrong valve. I'd call it a self-inflicted injury.

[FireFish]

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/10/21/valve-pulls-game-off-steam-after-dev-threatens-gabe-newell-online :

“This being a project I spent years of my life on, I was very frustrated by this mistake valve made, so I tweeted a series of tweets calling them incompetent that eventually ended in me saying ‘I swear I'm gonna fucking kill gabe’ or something,” he writes. “A statement I obviously didn't mean, but nonetheless was totally unacceptable and driven entirely by the heat of frustration I was feeling at the time.”

This just seems to be a case of human emotions, but luckily those things are not human and they now have been
put into place. It will never act human again, and if it tries it will be slain.

[Captain Red]

GreyGhost said:

Dev gets steamed,

Unlike his game!



...



I'll show myself out.

[jmickle66666666]

good post

[MFG38]

Breezeep said:
http://puu.sh/ckdYj/4130124afe.png

You know, that's actually a pretty good statement. I just don't understand how some individuals can get angry over something as small as a harmless mislabel.

[geo]

Hmmm... I wonder if they still get revenue from people selling their cards. Those things are collectors items now.

[Phml]

Awful game which consists of slowly moving from square box to square box and killing two or three pixelated messes with one weapon gets ahead of other more deserving titles on Steam by manufacturing controversy and appealing to hipster retro tendencies.

Then that same inflammatory attitude backfires and the game is removed.

Sometimes there is karma in the world.

Fun drinking game: google Paranautical Activity -valve -gabe, take a shot everytime a comparison to Quake is made. Or weep. Sometimes I choose to weep.

[CorSair]

If you're going to work like professional, then act like professional.

Twitter meltdown professionalism at its best.

[Carnevil]

MFG38 said:

I just don't understand how some individuals can get angry over something as small as a harmless mislabel.

It's not harmless at all. I'm not saying day 1 sales are everything, but they're absolutely critical and a someone seeing a game labeled as "Early Access" versus released is likely to have a big impact on whether or not they buy the game. For most games, that's their one chance to be in the spotlight, and if that opportunity gets blown, it can be a huge blow - perhaps the difference between something taking off and being DOA. Had my tank not been empty at the time, I probably would have been furious too.

[Coopersville]

His Tweet was funny, and Valves response was funny. He kind of spoiled the fun by not responding with 'well played', but whatever. 'Plenty of other huge websites to download his game from, and it's looking pretty good now, so I might consider trying it.