So Paranautical Activity got pulled from Steam the same day it released.

[Tohuvabohu]

Valve then aparently, from what I could tell, got angry at his tweets and completely pulled the game from Steam. I don't know much further, but this is pretty horrible.

Let's not downplay the fact that he made a death threat.

The alleged bullshit the developer is responsible for runs far deeper than that too. According to this thread on Reddit, the developer was begging for good reviews for his game on steam and banning anyone who refused to give a good review.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2jspdu/paranautical_activity_devs_begging_for_good/

The game was apparently buggy, broken, missing features, and generally not fit to be released as a full product. What these users are saying makes the game seem well deserving of an early access title since it still needed a lot of work.

Even if this is somehow not true, he made a death threat.



[quote]which, while probably in jest, is what got him pulled and is something he REALLY shouldn't have done.[/quote]

"Ohh he's just venting"

Death threats are utterly, utterly unacceptable. No jests about that.

Honestly, any capacity I had to feel sorry for his problems with Steam went completely out the window when he made these death threats.

In the context of virtually any other kind of professional setting. Would it be [i]remotely excusable[/i] if you made a death threat because you were frustrated with your boss, or frustrated with someone you're attempting to conduct business with? [b]No.[/b] Chances are you would be thrown out the door instantly and be reported to the police. How is this any different? Because he said it on twitter?

All I can think of is how long he's a been a dipshit idiot troll on the internet long before he's had an actual image and responsibilities and couldn't hide behind anonymity. Think about it. How many fucking shitheads on twitter react to things that upset them with death threats? It's easy enough for many of them to do, many of them hide their identities so they can say whatever they want, and chances are no one will pay much attention to them.
This is different. The guy had a name, and represented a product he made, and he threw it all away with a thoughtless twitter meltdown.

This is business, and the guy was attempting to create a product to presumably make a living off of. You DON'T react to an issue like this by threatening to kill someone. And that's the bottom line.

 

[Verlander]

If there's a shop that stocks a chocolate bar, and the guy who makes the chocolate bar is a dick to the shop owner, is it unreasonable for the shop to stop stocking it? That's what this is, nothing more. Hopefully the dev appreciates his life lesson when he calms down a bit.

Oh look, a food analogy.

Steam failed to provide a service and the guy who properly spent his own time and money getting this game up-to scratch is being screwed over. The guy is frustrated and venting while getting no response to which I empathise. Steam is being the dick thus far, they are quite happy to wait to resolve his problem but they are more than happy to deal with a problem straight away that they don't like.

At least in a real customer service job you try helping to solve the problem before you get rid of them. Steam are showing themselves off to be the typical fatcats by shitting on hard working people.

The shop owner didn't advertise the chocolate bar to the producer's desire, probably because it was too busy concentrating on the bigger products in the shop. Death threat worthy indeed.

 

[Atmos Duality]

At least in a real customer service job you try helping to solve the problem before you get rid of them.

Pray tell where these mythical creatures dwell, because finding a motivated (and comprehensible) customer service employee is like finding a unicorn.

 

[Ima Lemming]

Do all the people who bought the game still get to keep it?

I can understand the dev's anger, especially considering their incident with steam greenlight, but frankly he got what was coming to him. It really sucks for the other dev, though.

Yes, it'll still appear in your library if you already bought it, and you'll even receive and updates. You just can't purchase it anymore (though I hear you can buy it at the HIB, then activate it on Steam)

Since my last post I've check out this guy's Twitter account and... yeesh, Gordon Ramsay would think this guy to calm down.

 

[shrekfan246]

If there's a shop that stocks a chocolate bar, and the guy who makes the chocolate bar is a dick to the shop owner, is it unreasonable for the shop to stop stocking it? That's what this is, nothing more. Hopefully the dev appreciates his life lesson when he calms down a bit.

Oh look, a food analogy.

Steam failed to provide a service and the guy who properly spent his own time and money getting this game up-to scratch is being screwed over. The guy is frustrated and venting while getting no response to which I empathise. Steam is being the dick thus far, they are quite happy to wait to resolve his problem but they are more than happy to deal with a problem straight away that they don't like.

At least in a real customer service job you try helping to solve the problem before you get rid of them. Steam are showing themselves off to be the typical fatcats by shitting on hard working people.

They didn't "fail to provide a service", actually.

The game was available for sale and listed properly on everything except the front page, which came with the banner "Now Available in Early Access" instead of "Now Available".

The error was potentially something to do with normal operations of Steam and how its storefront updates, was brought to Valve's attention, and was reportedly fixed within an hour or two. EDIT: Unfortunately, that was an hour or two longer than Mike needed to effectively ruin his career over Twitter.

Do all the people who bought the game still get to keep it?

Yes, and it's still available on other storefronts as well (unless those were pulled overnight). Humble Bundle still provided working Steam keys even after the game was pulled from Steam itself.

 

[Rozalia1]

I can see why he'd be so angry even if the issue was fixed a mere 3 hours later, in his words Steam ain't going to give him bonus time to make up for it so that mistake may well have cost him serious dosh.
This combined with his other bad experience its not hard to see why he thinks Steam is out to screw him over...shouldn't have used death threats however. Badmouthing someone on the mic is fine, but when you cross into the territory of wishing someone died in a car crash than you're on path of getting buried. There is heat, and than there is "we're going to mess you up for real now" heat.

All is not lost however as apparently Sony has shown interest in the past (he is on other things on PC but as he says, Steam is the big money on PC), and while he wasn't too hot on the idea originally I don't think he has much of a choice now.
The only problem is this might have made them uninterested, and even if they still are knowing they have a strong hand they could pull some conditions with the greatest of ease if they wanted.

 

[mad825]

They didn't "fail to provide a service", actually.

The game was available for sale and listed properly on everything except the front page, which came with the banner "Now Available in Early Access" instead of "Now Available".

Advertising is part of Steam's package and they failed to advertise correctly. They failed to provide a service simple as. Even so, they failed to co-operate with the developer.

Should have this been a business they fucked with Steam would be royally begging for forgiveness.

The error was potentially something to do with normal operations of Steam and how its storefront updates, was brought to Valve's attention, and was reportedly fixed within an hour or two. EDIT: Unfortunately, that was an hour or two longer than Mike needed to effectively ruin his career over Twitter.

How sweet,so two wrongs make a right?

 

[Leonardo Huizar]

Hmm... Reminds me of that Recent series of Looney Toons episode where Daffy was told in order to release some stress that he should vent/write the most vicious e-mail he can muster. And then he accidentally e-mailed everyone he knew which didnt end well for him. Although silly, i do that myself often when petty reasons upset me.

I guess thats just a'notha reminder why Jim made that episode about whiny Indies Devs.

 

[shrekfan246]

They didn't "fail to provide a service", actually.

The game was available for sale and listed properly on everything except the front page, which came with the banner "Now Available in Early Access" instead of "Now Available".

Advertising is part of Steam's package and they failed to advertise correctly. They failed to provide a service simple as. Even so, they failed to co-operate with the developer.

Should have this been a business they fucked with Steam would be royally begging for forgiveness.

The error was potentially something to do with normal operations of Steam and how its storefront updates, was brought to Valve's attention, and was reportedly fixed within an hour or two. EDIT: Unfortunately, that was an hour or two longer than Mike needed to effectively ruin his career over Twitter.

How sweet,so two wrongs make a right?

All right, let me establish a few things right now so we don't get mixed up:
- I'm not saying Steam didn't make a mistake. They categorically did. The game was advertised improperly. This was brought to Valve's attention and was fixed before Mr. Maulbeck had finished his Twitter meltdown. You don't get to gloss over the fact that it was fixed, because that entirely negates your whole "they didn't cooperate" spiel.

- If it was a "business" (it was, actually, because Mr. Maulbeck had a partner who has subsequently been ruined by the Twitter meltdown) such as, say, Ubisoft, this never would have happened in the first place. Because they wouldn't have flipped their shit over a banner ad being incorrect for an hour.

- Even accepting that Steam screwed up the listing for the guy's game, that doesn't justify him reacting the way he did. He is supposed to be a professional, and the way he acted on Twitter is most certainly not. Valve are well within their rights as a company to terminate all business transactions with his company, which he is acting as part of the face of since it is a two-man company, and said termination results in the delisting of his game. Twitter meltdowns weren't okay when Phil Fish did them, they're not okay when this guy does them either.

 

[Someone Depressing]

A system error made meaning that your game is advertised incorrectly?

>Send death threats

Genius!
Just goes to show that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds. And if you do, you probably deserve your punishment for being so dumb.

 

[MXRom]

Yeah there should be more of this. A little more consequence for stupid actions should help reign in this impulsiveness that plagues micro-blogs like Twitter right now.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Well, from the looks of it, it was only the matter of time before the removal of this game from the steam due to poor communications with the consumer. Good job on steam, I guess.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I can see why he'd be so angry even if the issue was fixed a mere 3 hours later, in his words Steam ain't going to give him bonus time to make up for it so that mistake may well have cost him serious dosh.
This combined with his other bad experience its not hard to see why he thinks Steam is out to screw him over...shouldn't have used death threats however. Badmouthing someone on the mic is fine, but when you cross into the territory of wishing someone died in a car crash than you're on path of getting buried. There is heat, and than there is "we're going to mess you up for real now" heat.

All is not lost however as apparently Sony has shown interest in the past (he is on other things on PC but as he says, Steam is the big money on PC), and while he wasn't too hot on the idea originally I don't think he has much of a choice now.
The only problem is this might have made them uninterested, and even if they still are knowing they have a strong hand they could pull some conditions with the greatest of ease if they wanted.

This is the thing I wish more people would focus on, I know the death threat was totally not ok but neither was Steam's treatment or the way they handled the service, I'm seeing people being more angry towards a death threat that was

A)Not carried out and empty
B) dealt with faster than Steam dealt with updating his requests

No one is taking any issue with Valve's lack of quality service and people are purposely lowering their view of quality standards in order to let Steam get off scot free, it happens almost every time and yet we're here in 2014 and Steam is still cluttered with crap, still hasn't fully updated their client to make it as light and fast as possible, still has a service that pulls money from your bank account only when the bank is open (unlike Amazon who is able to check your account automatically and tell you that you cannot buy while Steam takes even from the bank and put you in the red).

I'm well aware the guy is now dealt with, that's all now over and done with but Steam is still going to do this in the future over and over where they won't do their job 100% correctly and when someone makes a threat they will most certainly lift a finger faster than delivering what is requested which is still flat out wrong at the end of the day, they should be doing both just as fast as killing the threat.

This is just going to be another one of those stories I'm never going to forget where it was mostly Valve's fault for not doing their job correctly and on time, had they done it on time and correctly then none of this would have happened, people claim "oh it was done hours later", that's not good enough, hire more people if you're short staffed to do a normal job correctly and on time, stop trying to make it the norm and surpass it.

 

[Vigormortis]

Do all the people who bought the game still get to keep it?

Yes.

Valve is also keeping up the game's community hub and forum so players can discuss the game, and they're going to work with the dev of the game to continue to support and provide updates for those who already own it.

 

[BeerTent]

@Mad825 looks like he's trying to defend the developer in this case.

Spoiler: Get the fucking popcorn.

The dev still hasn't learned either. He's just a spoiled little shit that ruined the credibility of his business partner in the process. Everyone's already said everything that I was going to, So I'll just leave that gif there for now. It's pretty indicative of my thoughts on the entire clusterfuck anyway.

 

[Fireprufe15]

So Mike sold his half of their studio to his business partner and completely withdrew from the project. Valli is now making a big apology on Twitter. Valli did nothing wrong as far as I know, so I hope for his sake he can get back on Steam.

 

[Spartan448]

If there's one thing that The Godfather taught me, it's that the best business practice is to never make things personal. Death threats are personal, and if were me, I'd be pressing charges as well. Because people need to learn that death threats are serious business and they should be treated as such. Saying "But I didn't mean it!!!" Isn't going to cut you any slack. It is a criminal offense and even if there was no substance to the threat you deserve jail time.

 

[shovat]

Dear prospective game developers,

Please remember that professionalism matters in relation to business partners. If you treat your business partner poorly, in this case a world class distributor you are inviting them to do an inquiry on whether a continued business partnership is worth their time and effort. If you feel it wise to threaten bodily harm to their staff (or owner) you better comprise of a significant portion of their profit margin or you will be shown the door regardless of the actual intent to carry the threat out.

Lol internets plays no role in business partnerships.

Thank you for your time

Sincerely,

Some dude on the internet.

 

[Zipa]

Did this guy go to the Phil Fish school of professional conduct or something? What did he think was going to happen, threatening the head of Valve with a death threat? Over something minor to that was fixed pretty quickly.

 

[RicoADF]

So Mike sold his half of their studio to his business partner and completely withdrew from the project. Valli is now making a big apology on Twitter. Valli did nothing wrong as far as I know, so I hope for his sake he can get back on Steam.

Here's hoping Valve is open to dealing with Valli. To be honest I think they over reacted considering it wasn't a 1 man operation, would they dump 2K or Ubisoft if one of their employees did the same thing? Yeah it's a smaller team but it's still a team and a business, as such they should have discussed a solution rather than drop them like a sack of $*@t