Indie dev threatens Gabe Newell. While selling on Steam

[bilateralrope]

Steam pulls game after its developer tweets Gabe Newell death threat.

By Michael McWhertor on Oct 20, 2014 at 8:19p

The developer of Paranautical Activity, described by its creators as a fast-paced, first-person shooter roguelike, had its game pulled from Valve's Steam service today after its creator posted a death threat to the company's co-founder, Gabe Newell.

Mike Maulbeck, creator of Paranautical Activity, says he released the final version of his PC game on Steam today. When it went live, the game's Steam page indicated that the game was still in Early Access, which Maulbeck believed would "greatly cripple sales and confuse customers."

"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," Maulbeck said in an email to Polygon. "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."

Maulbeck let loose a series of vitriolic tweets, calling Valve "incompetent" and expressing anger at Steam's "awful fucking monopoly." Maulbeck then allegedly said in a since-deleted tweet, "I am going to kill gabe newell [sic]. He is going to die."

In response, Valve pulled Paranautical Activity from Steam, and according to Maulbeck, contacted him to say it was terminating its relationship with the developer and closing down his Steam admin account. The game no longer appears on the Steam website. In a statement to Polygon, Valve confirmed that the game was pulled as a result of Maulbeck's threat.

"Yes, we have removed the game's sales page and ceased relations with the developer after he threatened to kill one of our employees," said Valve's Doug Lombardi in an email.

Maulbeck says he has attempted to get Valve to reconsider its decision.

"I have since obviously replied to them saying that I didn't mean what I said and pleaded that they consider the monopoly they have on the PC market before totally writing us off," Maulbeck said in an email to Polygon, "but let's be real. If they took the game off the store, they're fuckin sure about their decision. There's probably nothing to be done."

Maulbeck's studio Code Avarice has a history with getting Paranautical Activity on Steam. The developer was denied a publishing deal on Steam Greenlight last year as part of an agreement with Adult Swim.

Paranautical Activity is available through other digital distribution means, like Desura and the Humble Store, but Maulbeck lamented that the game sold 12 copies on non-Steam platforms today.

Screencap of the death threat

Would I be right in thinking that he just ended his career in game development with that one tweet ?

[Jub]

It sounds like he's been hard to work with since day one and doesn't have much of a marketing arm beyond hoping people see his game on Steam's front page; so I'd say yes he just killed his studio.

[The Vortex Empire]

Moral of the story: Probably not a good idea to make death threats.

[bilateralrope]

It sounds like he's been hard to work with since day one and doesn't have much of a marketing arm beyond hoping people see his game on Steam's front page; so I'd say yes he just killed his studio.

I was hoping that he was a solo dev so he didn't bring anyone else down with him. Sadly it was a two man game. The artist is having a bit of a meltdown over how bad this is for his career and people being angry at him. I hope he can recover from this.

As for what Maulbeck off in the first place, his game being incorrectly marked as early access, a poster on Neogaf thinks it's something that would have resolved itself on its own:

I'm not entirely convinced that this was done by mistake. Steam's front-end servers are distributed globally and are tried into a traditional CDN (Content Delivery Network, in this case Akamai). These front end servers refresh relevant data from Valve's back-end servers in Bellvue. This replication process can take anywhere from 10-25 minutes normally, unless Valve specifically pushes the data from their origin master server.

The title of the front page carousel not being updated immediately when the game was released is most likely the result of that timing and would have been fixed automatically (most likely) within the next few minutes. In fact, a lot of people on Twitter started reporting that it was showing correctly for them.

Sure, someone at Valve could have probably "flipped the switch" and pushed the update manually. But this guy totally overreacted to what was probably just a routine server function.

[Grumman]

I wonder whether it would have been better not to have immediately pulled his game from Steam, considering the subject of his ranting. It obviously goes without saying that he shouldn't be threatening to kill people, but Steam exerting its monopolistic power in response to someone calling them "an awful fucking monopoly" isn't going to do anything useful when you're not talking about locking him out of an actual physical building. If you're actually worried about this guy, get the FBI involved.

[Thanas]

"Paranautical" - what kind of butchering of Greek and latin terms is that? Makes no sense whatsoever.

[AniThyng]

I wonder whether it would have been better not to have immediately pulled his game from Steam, considering the subject of his ranting. It obviously goes without saying that he shouldn't be threatening to kill people, but Steam exerting its monopolistic power in response to someone calling them "an awful fucking monopoly" isn't going to do anything useful when you're not talking about locking him out of an actual physical building. If you're actually worried about this guy, get the FBI involved.

But this is a PC game we're talking about here - is Steam really a monopoly in this sense? This isn't like being pulled from the Play store or Apple store, aside from logistics there is nothing else standing in the way of distributing the game to the PC gamer market, and now he has a ton of publicity and sympathy from people who think he got shafted by Steam.

[Beowulf]

"Paranautical" - what kind of butchering of Greek and latin terms is that? Makes no sense whatsoever.

People have been butchering greek and latin for hundreds of years.

[Thanas]

Sure, people are idiots, so?

[bilateralrope]

I wonder whether it would have been better not to have immediately pulled his game from Steam, considering the subject of his ranting. It obviously goes without saying that he shouldn't be threatening to kill people, but Steam exerting its monopolistic power in response to someone calling them "an awful fucking monopoly" isn't going to do anything useful when you're not talking about locking him out of an actual physical building. If you're actually worried about this guy, get the FBI involved.

So what should Valve have done in response ?

Why should they be willing to do anything but end their business relationship with him as fast as they can ?

"Paranautical" - what kind of butchering of Greek and latin terms is that? Makes no sense whatsoever.

A name thought up by someone who wants a distinct name for their game, but isn't planning to have any story within it. From what coverage I've seen of of Paranautical Activity, there is no context to why you're fighting the monsters. Just a procedurally generated series of rooms with monsters for you to fight.

[Dominus Atheos]

"Paranautical" - what kind of butchering of Greek and latin terms is that? Makes no sense whatsoever.

It's a (bad) pun on "Paranormal Activity", since you shoot pirate ghosts (or something).

[Grumman]

So what should Valve have done in response ?

Why should they be willing to do anything but end their business relationship with him as fast as they can ?

Because ending the business relationship makes both parts of the problem worse. It gives a potentially unstable individual two more reasons to do something stupid, and it makes you look more like the awful fucking monopoly he accuses you of being. If you are genuinely concerned about somebody making death threats, telling the authorities is useful, giving him reason to believe his career is over and you're the one who ended it is not.

[Metahive]

I cannot blame anyone from ending a business relationship with some unstable guy who threatened you with death. If you shout death threats at a cashier in a store you most likely get thrown out or even banned as well, so I don't see the difference.

[Siege]

But this is a PC game we're talking about here - is Steam really a monopoly in this sense? This isn't like being pulled from the Play store or Apple store, aside from logistics there is nothing else standing in the way of distributing the game to the PC gamer market, and now he has a ton of publicity and sympathy from people who think he got shafted by Steam.

In 2013, 92 percent of all PC games were sold digitally. Valve doesn't release its sales figures but it's been reported that Steam accounts for up to 70 percent of the digital distribution market. Of the remaining 30 percent it stands to reason a lot is locked into major publisher controlled platforms like Origin or Uplay. So even if it isn't technically a monopoly it might as well be. Because unless you're Blizzard you can forget about shifting large numbers of games if you're not on Steam.

[AniThyng]

But this is a PC game we're talking about here - is Steam really a monopoly in this sense? This isn't like being pulled from the Play store or Apple store, aside from logistics there is nothing else standing in the way of distributing the game to the PC gamer market, and now he has a ton of publicity and sympathy from people who think he got shafted by Steam.

In 2013, 92 percent of all PC games were sold digitally. Valve doesn't release its sales figures but it's been reported that Steam accounts for up to 70 percent of the digital distribution market. Of the remaining 30 percent it stands to reason a lot is locked into major publisher controlled platforms like Origin or Uplay. So even if it isn't technically a monopoly it might as well be. Because unless you're Blizzard you can forget about shifting large numbers of games if you're not on Steam.

So? This is an indie game with tons of press now we're talking about here. He can't put it on a file hosting service, take payment via paypal and call it a day like every other indie game before Steam even existed did?

[Napoleon the Clown]

So what should Valve have done in response ?

Why should they be willing to do anything but end their business relationship with him as fast as they can ?

Because ending the business relationship makes both parts of the problem worse. It gives a potentially unstable individual two more reasons to do something stupid, and it makes you look more like the awful fucking monopoly he accuses you of being. If you are genuinely concerned about somebody making death threats, telling the authorities is useful, giving him reason to believe his career is over and you're the one who ended it is not.

I'm going to keep my words small so you understand them.

Death threats are bad. Valve does not need that shit. Getting rid of someone that makes death threats doesn't "prove" that they have too large a share. It shows they don't tolerate idiots shooting their mouths off. If you ran a company and an associate started pulling that shit, would you keep ties? It's like a worker for Verizon or wherever posting on the internet about how "awful" and "evil" the company is and saying they're gonna kill the CEO. Getting canned is probably the happy ending.



Based off the interview in the article, the guy sounds like he's seriously lacking in any sort of professional demeanor. Even if he were brilliant as a writer/programmer/whatever he'd have a hard time getting a decent career because his attitude is just too immature. This little stunt basically guarantees he'll never have any career in the gaming industry whatsoever. He's proven himself to be an emotionally immature, entitled little asshole. World keeps turning.

[Darmalus]

In 2013, 92 percent of all PC games were sold digitally. Valve doesn't release its sales figures but it's been reported that Steam accounts for up to 70 percent of the digital distribution market. Of the remaining 30 percent it stands to reason a lot is locked into major publisher controlled platforms like Origin or Uplay. So even if it isn't technically a monopoly it might as well be. Because unless you're Blizzard you can forget about shifting large numbers of games if you're not on Steam.

Which makes me wonder why no one is trying to challenge Steam, since the profits aren't at all marginal. You could easily improve on Steam's rather dated and clunky interface

[Vendetta]

This isn't the first time that Steam has caused problems for Paranautical Activity. When they were first trying to launch steam wouldn't let them out of greenlight (back when it was "nerds vote on a description to see if game is allowed on steam at all" and hence incredibly unhelpful to devs) when they secured a publisher who had an existing working relationship with Steam (usually when a publisher has one game on steam they can automatically publish as many as they like whenever they like, flooding the front page with shit like Strategy First do).

So y'know, straw that broke the camel's back and all, it would be easy for Maulbeck to feel like someone at Valve had it in for him given the previous bullshit.

As for steam as a monopoly, it pretty much is. Digital distribution via steam outsells other platforms by such an amazing degree that if you aren't on steam you might as well not exist, and if you manage to get the front page of steam or appear in one of its sales it can make or break a game.

[AniThyng]

In 2013, 92 percent of all PC games were sold digitally. Valve doesn't release its sales figures but it's been reported that Steam accounts for up to 70 percent of the digital distribution market. Of the remaining 30 percent it stands to reason a lot is locked into major publisher controlled platforms like Origin or Uplay. So even if it isn't technically a monopoly it might as well be. Because unless you're Blizzard you can forget about shifting large numbers of games if you're not on Steam.

Which makes me wonder why no one is trying to challenge Steam, since the profits aren't at all marginal. You could easily improve on Steam's rather dated and clunky interface

It probably doesn't help that Origin and Uplay are worse

[Siege]

So? This is an indie game with tons of press now we're talking about here. He can't put it on a file hosting service, take payment via paypal and call it a day like every other indie game before Steam even existed did?

What do you mean, 'so'? You asked if Steam was a monopoly. It for all intents and purposes is. If the devs sell their game on their own, without a major publisher or advertising budget, they won't make anywhere near as much money as being on the front page of Steam would make them. 'Tons of press' (if it is that, so far I've only seen this affair mentioned on Kotaku) means attention for a day. Then everybody will forget about this storm in a teacup and without the sustain of being on Steam's popular new releases / top sellers / curator lists / X percent off deals a week from now nobody will buy this game anymore.

If you want to really make it as an indie developer it's Steam or bust. This is hardly news. Why do you think the fucked upness of the Greenlight program was such a big deal to indies?

EDIT:

Which makes me wonder why no one is trying to challenge Steam, since the profits aren't at all marginal. You could easily improve on Steam's rather dated and clunky interface

For the same reason nobody has managed to dethrone WoW as the premier MMO: it was the first, it works decently enough, and it's got a big customer base that has no real interest in shifting over to another service. Good luck competing with that.

[DaveJB]

GOG's been gaining a lot of traction in the last few years. Right now it's not nearly as big as Steam, but from what I gather it's certainly at the point of being a viable alternative for indie developers.

There are some legitimate arguments to be made about Steam's monopoly (even if Origin and GOG are little-by-little eating into it), but in context it looks like this guy knew he'd just screwed things up beyond any hope of repair, and made a last-gasp effort to poison the well and make Steam's inevitable decision look like the act of a vindictive monopolist, rather than them just deciding they didn't want to deal with a guy who can't control his temper.

[Thanas]

Whenever i got the option to chose between GOG and steam I chose GOG. So much better.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

There's also Desura, Green Man and probably other platforms. At the end of the day, most gamers don't care about the finer points of one platform vs another, they just want a convenient place to buy and organize their games. While I sympathize with the frustrations many indie devs have with Steam, Valve would have to skeet shoot infants to get me to stop using it, since the alternative is to have my games scattered across different services with different ways of retrieving them. I don't want to have to hunt through my e-mail for a CD key after upgrading my OS or check every gaming portal to find out which one I purchased a game for, only to remember that I was interested in the game but never actually bought it.

[bilateralrope]

So what should Valve have done in response ?

Why should they be willing to do anything but end their business relationship with him as fast as they can ?

Because ending the business relationship makes both parts of the problem worse. It gives a potentially unstable individual two more reasons to do something stupid, and it makes you look more like the awful fucking monopoly he accuses you of being. If you are genuinely concerned about somebody making death threats, telling the authorities is useful, giving him reason to believe his career is over and you're the one who ended it is not.

You are saying that Valve should maintain their business relationship with him after the death threat. How long should they maintain the relationship ?

I'm not sure if the 'fucking monopoly' tweet happened before or after the game was pulled.

This isn't the fist piece of bad behavior from Maulbeck. Paranautical Activity was in a Groupies bundle, and Maulbeck didn't provide enough keys, but blamed Groupies for it. Then Maulbeck raged a bit more over having to provide Steam keys:
But Im a lazy fuck because groupees decided not to publish the keys we sent them. I wish I could reach through my monitor and slap that cunt

Nothing motivates me like angry children http://i.imgur.com/5lf0lAi.png

These fuckers got the game they paid for. I don't owe them steam keys. I'm doing that because I'm a nice fucking guy.

It's a lot of work for me to do something that I literally gain nothing from just for the convenience and happiness of our customers.

We got 18c per copy on groupees. And here I am giving every fucking person from that bundle our game, a Desura key, and a Steam key.

@WillTheFo if i could I'd revoke his steam key and turn his copy of PA into spyware.

Just realized I can IPban people from our site. Today is a good day.

Sure, the death threat was probably empty. But I see no reason why Valve should treat even an empty threat as acceptable behavior.

As a followup, Maulbeck has now left the company

Mike is leaving Code Avarice

By Mike

Yesterday, Paranautical Activity released out of steam Early Access, and following some confusion about the state of the game I became frustrated with Steam, and tweeted a series of angry tweets that ended in me sarcastically saying I was going to kill Gabe Newell. A statement I obviously didn’t mean but was regardless completely unacceptable.

As a result of my actions, Paranautical Activity, a game made by 4 or 5 people depending on who you count as team members, was removed from steam. I feel is it my responsibility to step down from Code Avarice completely so that Steam has no reason to harbor any more ill will towards the company, and maybe even if we can’t see Paranautical Activity restored, at least future Code Avarice games may be allowed onto the platform.

I’m really, deeply sorry that my short sighted, hot tempered actions resulted in not only my own dreams and aspirations being destroyed, but those of the entire team I worked with. I’m sorry that my statements made Valve and/or Gabe uncomfortable and upset (rightfully so).

My temper and tendency to use twitter to vent has been a consistent problem since I entered the games industry, and I just can’t do it. I don’t have the willpower necessary to be the “face” of a company. 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.

I’ve sold my half of Code Avarice to Travis. Given up all my rights to CA as a company, and all it’s intellectual properties. I won’t receive any money from the sale of Paranautical Activity or any future games CA develops, I won’t be consulted on business decisions, and I won’t have any hand in development.

I’m out.

I don't see why he expects anyone to believe he made the death threat sarcastically. Being angry and making it without thinking I can believe, but not sarcastically.

With him stepping down, I hope Valve returns the game to Steam. The other people who worked on it don't deserve to have their work trashed because he couldn't control his mouth.

[Jub]

That's a big step for him to take and in spite of his behavior thus far I respect Mike for stepping aside. It isn't easy to be in the public relations chair and I hope that the next team he joins will allow him to work without dealing with members of the public.