Indie dev threatens Gabe Newell, has game removed from Steam

Fengol

http://kotaku.com/indie-dev-threatens-gabe-newell-has-game-removed-from-1648678869

"Maulbeck's game, Paranautical Activity, was included as part of a Steam store section highlighting Halloween-themed games... Only, it was listed as an Early Access title, not a final product... That mistake sent Maulbeck into a Twitter tirade."

Are people out of their minds? Is there something in the drinking water?

Why is part of the game dev industry and the gaming audience mouthing off on the internet?

It feels kind of a new thing.

bischonator

I see far to many devs being really nasty online and maybe this will make them think twice about what they tweet and post.

duncanbellsa

Haha what an idiot - you don't bite the hand that feeds.

I find it amazing how unprofessional and ignorant some "professional" game developers are.

AngryMoose

Thank goodness he has said he is quitting game development. We don't need any more emotionally stunted self entitled cry babies propagating the spoilt child gamer stereotype upon developers. There's enough of those already.

Tuism

I understand that only the extreme elements hits the headlines, but to the outside world it may seems like we have nothing but extreme elements in our midst :/

It literally makes no sense to go mouthing off stuff like that. His bluff/joke/idiocy's been called, and I think *now* it's quite a funny joke.

ShadowBlade

Well, what a clever move on his part..

We've had small things like what he talked about happen with Steam (labeled something incorrectly, or other tiny things), but that is always sorted out easily with an email to them, usually very hastily.

dammit

To a degree, this is why I think it's important that people work in the real world (having to suffer terrible managers etc) before venturing into game development. It prepares you for managing your emotions and reactions to difficult situations at least to some degree...

Though, I probably hold this thought because it's encouraged in psychology that you get "life experience" before venturing into clinical psychology - something absolutely vital, and something often stepped around.

Gibbo

@dammit - a good point, I don't know how young this guy is or whether he's had any other work experience but this rant, mouthing off his most important source of distribution, makes absolutely no business sense... one of the basic things you learn in a business environment is to never talk shit about anything work-related in a public forum. As @ShadowBlade points out this could have quickly been fixed with a private email.

Tuism

Oh he got sorted out quite swiftly indeed :)

critic

A rant that has gone a bit too far, dude deserves to have his game pulled from Steam and it's a good decision on his part to quit making games, very hard to recover from a rant like that. What I find interesting is that Steam actually noticed this...

wogan

Well it sounds like Code Avarice really are just a pair of trolls. There's Mike, who we all know now, but also his business partner Travis, who, and I quote:

Nor will we be part of any drama and negative trolling on any of these accounts. I need positive in my life now. Although I do enjoy a good trolling.

And this gold, relayed by an anonymous comment on the post about Mike resigning from his 2-man band:

I had the "pleasure" of being acquainted with Mike and Travis during a Groupees bundle we shared last year in May. They were harassing customers in chat and I stepped in to tell them to stop. After Mike and Travis retargeted their harassment at me, Mike and I proceeded to chat in private messages. I told him "you need to learn to act a bit more professional" after a short discussion about how he can't treat his customers that way. He said "You can't teach a lesson to God."

So on the plus side, you clearly don't need even a modicum of professionalism in order to make and sell games. So if anyone was worried about that, they can relax :P

Tuism

So the guy that made the kill Gabe tweet had resigned from their jolly duo, hoping to save Code Avarice (and that name! Even that reeks of troll ego).

+1 for that.

Then in the same breath (blog) announcing this he says:

...If I do continue to work in games it'll be as an anonymous 1 of 1000 at some shitty corporation, not the most public figure of a single digit sized team.

Lol way to go. I didn't know you could burn bridges you never even crossed. Till now.

watson

Lol.....its like phil fish vs gabe newell, lots of people like to be hardcore online , and they get used to it and think its the norm, even finding it fun,then .......boom headshot

dislekcia

watson said:

Lol.....its like phil fish vs gabe newell, lots of people like to be hardcore online , and they get used to it and think its the norm, even finding it fun,then .......boom headshot

Um. Phil Fish didn't attack Valve at all... He certainly didn't make death threats. I'm not really sure how that's a useful comparison.

DarkCarnivour

Real professional like...

I know the folks Valve work hard and fix things, even at the craziest hours on Sunday.
I'm actually impressed how they perform compared to some of the stores who you would think would have more of a need to foster closer working ties with devs. Humble is also on the ball of course.

Crocopede

The guy sounds like a child. If he is not i could only imagine he had some serious financial stress that could have led to this behavior. Then again... im bankrupt in 5 months and im not going off on people.

So i guess there is no excuse for acting the way he did

konman

Alcohol... don't drink and post people!

Seriously though, this guy had more than a foot in the door...he was IN the club...now the bouncer has grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him out the door.

Could there be a silver lining to this cloud for him? AKA "Any publicity is good publicity?" Hmm, can't see it.

This is career suicide on a grand scale. It's sad to see though, a free lesson to us all.

I don't judge him. Just thinking "what a waste dude". Damn.

Mental note... beware what one says online. (Oh, wait, how do I delete this???)

Uncle Gabe says: Noooooo...

EvanGreenwood

Having come into contact with these developers before (having been in a group chat with them through being on Greenlight at the same time) I can with confidence say that it couldn't have happened to a worse person.

(Except if it had happened to his partner Travis.)

I'm not surprised Valve noticed his remark. I'm pretty certain that whoever took down their game did so gleefully. Code Avarice have a history of been very vocal about their dislike of Steam, and have made such a fuss in the past that Gabe Newell himself spoke to them.