Indie developer Digital Homicide did just that, prompting Valve to remove all its games from the largest PC gaming platform on the internet.
According to court documents filed in Arizona and uploaded to Google Drive by YouTuber SidAlpha, Digital Homicide doesn’t take criticism lightly. The filings indicate that James Romine, one-half of the Romine Brothers, who are Digital Homicide’s development team, sued 100 Steam users, alleging personal injury claims arising from online comments posted by the defendants.
The documents show screengrabs of Steam commenters asserting that Digital Homicide routinely tried to game Steam’s system by submitting a massive volume of games to Steam Greenlight for cheap, hoping to get quick sales from leftover change in user’s wallets. Accusations in the comments also assert that Digital Homicide would reskin a game and re-release it as brand new.
In a statement released to Tech Raptor, Valve’s Doug Lombardi said “Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.”
Interestingly, the court case is entitled “Romine vs Unknown Party.” This is because the Romines don’t know the names of the Steam users, so instead have chosen to list their usernames. They have also subpoenaed Valve to release relevant information on all 100 users in this lawsuit.
Steam Greenlight did remove Digital Homicide’s submissions once in the past — after the developer published eleven games on the same day.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the Romine Brothers’ first lawsuit. They famously sued popular video game YouTuber Jim Sterling earlier this year for $10 million in damages. The Romines in that case argued that whenever Sterling would criticize one of their games, his fans would go to Steam and add a barrage of negative comments.
It seems that Valve has decided to err on the side of its users. And considering how Valve has had to deal with Digital Homicide in the past, it would be safe to assume that this time, the Romines will be fighting an uphill battle.
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