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Dev sends death threat to Valve CEO, has game removed from STEAM


Kaftan Barlast

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If you're a developer selling a game on Steam, it's probably not the best idea in the world to tweet a death threat to theguy who owns Steam. That's what indie developer Mike Maulbeck did earlier today, though, and it's now something he probably regrets. The day should have started off pretty well! 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 (the game had been only recently completed). That mistake sent Maulbeck into a Twitter tirade.

 

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

 

 

But if you read the article, it becomes clear that the headline should have read "Valve reads frustrated man's private twitter feed, then removes the game he helped make from STEAM"

 

Some guy got mad about his indie game not launching smoothly on steam and wrote some angry tweets to his friends and followers, and because of that, STEAM took his game down. Then to make it even sillier, some game journalist goes off and spins the mess into a "That showed him!" story. The guy didnt send Gabe Newell anything, he essentially said "Im gonna kill 'em!" which is a perfectly natural reaction to being angry and frustrated. I've mumbled way worse thing about Ingvar Kamprad when assembling IKEA furniture.

 

What bussiness do Valve have reading some dudes private twitter feed? And how thin-skinned are they to go to the trouble of tracking down which game he made and removing it as revenge? And how does this **** even qualify as news?

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DISCLAIMER: Do not take what I write seriously unless it is clearly and in no uncertain terms, declared by me to be meant in a serious and non-humoristic manner. If there is no clear indication, asume the post is written in jest. This notification is meant very seriously and its purpouse is to avoid misunderstandings and the consequences thereof. Furthermore; I can not be held accountable for anything I write on these forums since the idea of taking serious responsability for my unserious actions, is an oxymoron in itself.

 

Important: as the following sentence contains many naughty words I warn you not to read it under any circumstances; botty, knickers, wee, erogenous zone, psychiatrist, clitoris, stockings, bosom, poetry reading, dentist, fellatio and the department of agriculture.

 

"I suppose outright stupidity and complete lack of taste could also be considered points of view. "

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If you have something to lose, don't ever post what you really think on the internet under your real name. Someone, somewhere will dig it out and smite you just to make them feel better about themselves.

 

I blame lack of mandatory military service and lack of bar fights for this behaviour.

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"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

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I think there should be a law that you get like 10 free passes a year for doing dumb **** on the internet. 

 

 

BOSS: You wrote on an internet forum that I like poop. You're fired!!

YOU: You cant fire me, I use internet free pass #5!

BOSS: Fine! You're not fired! But if you do it more than five times before the end of the year, your ass is outta here!

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DISCLAIMER: Do not take what I write seriously unless it is clearly and in no uncertain terms, declared by me to be meant in a serious and non-humoristic manner. If there is no clear indication, asume the post is written in jest. This notification is meant very seriously and its purpouse is to avoid misunderstandings and the consequences thereof. Furthermore; I can not be held accountable for anything I write on these forums since the idea of taking serious responsability for my unserious actions, is an oxymoron in itself.

 

Important: as the following sentence contains many naughty words I warn you not to read it under any circumstances; botty, knickers, wee, erogenous zone, psychiatrist, clitoris, stockings, bosom, poetry reading, dentist, fellatio and the department of agriculture.

 

"I suppose outright stupidity and complete lack of taste could also be considered points of view. "

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If you're a developer selling a game on Steam, it's probably not the best idea in the world to tweet a death threat to theguy who owns Steam. That's what indie developer Mike Maulbeck did earlier today, though, and it's now something he probably regrets. The day should have started off pretty well! 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 (the game had been only recently completed). That mistake sent Maulbeck into a Twitter tirade.

 

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

 

 

But if you read the article, it becomes clear that the headline should have read "Valve reads frustrated man's private twitter feed, then removes the game he helped make from STEAM"

 

Some guy got mad about his indie game not launching smoothly on steam and wrote some angry tweets to his friends and followers, and because of that, STEAM took his game down. Then to make it even sillier, some game journalist goes off and spins the mess into a "That showed him!" story. The guy didnt send Gabe Newell anything, he essentially said "Im gonna kill 'em!" which is a perfectly natural reaction to being angry and frustrated. I've mumbled way worse thing about Ingvar Kamprad when assembling IKEA furniture.

 

What bussiness do Valve have reading some dudes private twitter feed? And how thin-skinned are they to go to the trouble of tracking down which game he made and removing it as revenge? And how does this **** even qualify as news?

 

There is no such thing as a private twitter feed. 

 

He posted a death threat on the most publicly visible social media platform in the world.  WTF did he think was going to happen?   

Edited by Enoch
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Gotta agree with Enoch.

 

Also, we have to treat these kinda outbursts seriously, people need to learn that being angry isn't a free pass for this kind of behavior. Saying your gonna kill someone is not "just a healthy outlet" that's a serious statement.

 

That being said his anger was justified, he just squandered it by being an idiot.

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Fortune favors the bald.

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Yeah, you can mumble all you want about killing people when assembling Ikea furniture, but it's way different to go on a public forum and shout it out.

 

People need to learn some common sense.  This guy is a moron and I'll happily hold him up as an example to all my students on what not to do.

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I'm much more concerned about the fact that this is news than the fact that his game got pulled. He's an idiot, but I'm pretty sure the message that other idiots will receive here is "threaten somebody and Kotaku will make you famous". It may even be the intended message, seeing as how all of Gawker's nonsense is about this nowadays. Putting "Death threat" in your title makes for great click bait, which makes for great ad money.

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The problem of having a forum full of reasonable, intelligent people is that most things to be said about an issue get said on the first page. 
I really don't know what we would do without our trolls.

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I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"*

 

*If you can't tell, it's you. ;)

village_idiot.gif

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He should've written it in a silly foreign accent and everyone would've laughed and then forgotten about it.

"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

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When me and my friends play Battlefield 4 online on public servers, I usually recieve about four death threats, numerous racist insults and one or two instances of people claiming my mother was promiscuous. It's just the way people act on the internet when there is no filter. The trick is to have the filter in your brain, instead of relying on the goverment or whomever to put a physical one there for you.

 

 

 

There is no such thing as a private twitter feed.

Clarification: by private twitter feed, I mean one that is tied to a private individual. Not a company, organisation or public persona. The kind of thing that is read by five people. It's less public than writing something in a toilet stall.

DISCLAIMER: Do not take what I write seriously unless it is clearly and in no uncertain terms, declared by me to be meant in a serious and non-humoristic manner. If there is no clear indication, asume the post is written in jest. This notification is meant very seriously and its purpouse is to avoid misunderstandings and the consequences thereof. Furthermore; I can not be held accountable for anything I write on these forums since the idea of taking serious responsability for my unserious actions, is an oxymoron in itself.

 

Important: as the following sentence contains many naughty words I warn you not to read it under any circumstances; botty, knickers, wee, erogenous zone, psychiatrist, clitoris, stockings, bosom, poetry reading, dentist, fellatio and the department of agriculture.

 

"I suppose outright stupidity and complete lack of taste could also be considered points of view. "

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There is no such thing as a private twitter feed. 

 

He posted a death threat on the most publicly visible social media platform in the world.  WTF did he think was going to happen?   

 

 

That's not a death threat.

Not really.

 

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* YOU ARE A WRONGULARITY FROM WHICH NO RIGHT CAN ESCAPE! *

Chuck Norris was wrong once - He thought HE made a mistake!

 

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Career Darwinism?

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Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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There is no such thing as a private twitter feed.

Clarification: by private twitter feed, I mean one that is tied to a private individual. Not a company, organisation or public persona. The kind of thing that is read by five people. It's less public than writing something in a toilet stall.

 

Toilet-stall writing can't be sent to Gaben, Valve PR, and the FBI with a simple "RT@" by any one of the guy's followers. 

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When me and my friends play Battlefield 4 online on public servers, I usually recieve about four death threats, numerous racist insults and one or two instances of people claiming my mother was promiscuous. It's just the way people act on the internet when there is no filter. The trick is to have the filter in your brain, instead of relying on the goverment or whomever to put a physical one there for you.

 

 

There is no such thing as a private twitter feed.

Clarification: by private twitter feed, I mean one that is tied to a private individual. Not a company, organisation or public persona. The kind of thing that is read by five people. It's less public than writing something in a toilet stall.

 

 

You're scando, right? Then i understand on why those kinds of expressions work well with your friends on the factory floor, the workshop or during a BF4 deathmatch. No one takes those seriously and everyone understand the social dynamics involved. 

 

But on the internet those things do not work. You have no privacy. At all.

"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

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Did Newell flee his home ?

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

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Did Newell flee his home ?

 

I think you only have to do that when it's a four month old bomb threat at a far away convention centre.

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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If your income depends on someone else's platform who is not anyway depended on your product/s, you probably should not publicly bad mouth and threaten them because they can always decide not to do business with you.

 

Only person that I feel bad for is his business (now ex-)partner, because he probably didn't deserve also loose his income because of actions of his business partner, but that is reality in business and something that people even advocate with righteousness fury in other circumstances.

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Aside from death-threats not being OK in the first place, even on the internetz (yeah, yeah, we should all just toughen up and grow a thick skin, those feminists are out to take over gaming etc etc...), it was doubly stupid of this guy to post something like that aimed at the platform in which hands they've placed their game.

 

It's good STEAM did what they did. Thumbs up.

Edited by Starwars
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Listen to my home-made recordings (some original songs, some not): http://www.youtube.c...low=grid&view=0

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 So   I guess there is no Steam -developer contracts? Steam can just pull games willy nilly or is there a 'do not make mean post/stupid real or not real death threats at Steam boss'  stipulation in any signed contract? <>

 

Just wondering.

DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250.

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 So   I guess there is no Steam -developer contracts? Steam can just pull games willy nilly or is there a 'do not make mean post/stupid real or not real death threats at Steam boss'  stipulation in any signed contract? <>

 

Just wondering.

In my understanding Steam (Valve) reserves right to remove game from their service at any point of time without needing to inform game's rights holder/s about that decision without need to give reason behind their decision although this time Valve gave out reason behind their decision.

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