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Steam Entertainment Marketing: Movies, TV, Music and Gaming Technology

Hostility in the gaming world prompts removal of Digital Homicide titles from Steam

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By Kyle O'Brien, Creative Works Editor

September 20, 2016 | 3 min read

Steam, a PC gaming platform used by millions of people, has removed all games made by Digital Homicide over what the game maker described as hostile comments.

Hostility in the gaming world prompts removal of Digital Homicide titles from Steam

Hostility in the gaming world prompts removal of Digital Homicide titles from Steam

In a report by the BBC, Steam’s owning company Valve ceased its business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.

One of Digital Homicide’s two developers, James Romine, apparently sued 100 Steam users, citing personal injury claims from online comments given by those users, according to another report on Digital Trends.

The bizarre turn of events was brought on by court documents filed in Arizona which show screen grabbed comments from Steam users alleging that Digital Homicide routinely gamed Steam’s system by submitting a ton of games to Steam Greenlight cheaply, hoping for quick sales from leftover change in user’s digital wallets. Accusations also said that Digital Homicide would often re-skin a game and re-release it as a brand new title.

What makes the lawsuit even stranger is that the lawsuit is titled “Romaine vs Unknown Party,” since the screen grabs only show user names. Digital Homicide said it had been forced to go to court because Steam had done a bad job policing hostile comments.

The lawsuit and the complaints by Steam users prompted Valve to remove all of Digital Homicide’s games, discussions about the company and reviews of its titles from its platform.

“The lawsuit recently filed is solely in regards to individuals where no resolution was able to be obtained from Steam to provide a safe environment for us to conduct business,” said the post on Digital Homicide's site after its games were taken down.

Through the lawsuit, Digital Homicide is seeking to uncover the real identities of those they consider “hostile.” It isn’t the first time the company has sued someone. Earlier this year, Digital Homicide began a lawsuit against reviewer Jim Sterling accusing him of libel and slander in his reviews of their games – a $10m damages suit which has yet to be resolved.

Steam Entertainment Marketing: Movies, TV, Music and Gaming Technology

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