Developer Threatens Gabe Newell, Valve Removes Game From Steam [UPDATED]

Actually no. Adults don't issue death threats online. If this is the end of his career, too bad for him, maybe he shouldn't issue death threats online!

Death treats is obviously horrible and I think Valves reaction is a good thing, but I can just imagine how horrible that guy feels right now. He just ruined the success of the thing that he and likely some very close friends of his probably poured their heart and soul into. Please let this stop at this point and not escalate it to people harassing him since he already punished himself with his actions.

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.

Because of a tweet.

That's fucked up.

Maulbeck's behavior is not professional. I'm still wondering why anyone is even bothering trying to figure out an excuse for it.

Part of the thing with "freedom of speech" is that you have to accept the consequences of speaking freely.

@tirion: hear hear.

YOU RAISE AN EXCELLENT POINT, I AGREE COMPLETELY. AND I'M NOT GOING TO KILL YOU.

@spraynardtatum: Just because you choose not to work with a person doesn't mean you don't forgive them or cease being their friend.

But his lack of self-control cost him and his team potential money. That means less to pay rent with, less to feed families with. We're talking about indie developers, not corporations. Actions like this have greater weight.

But if they want to continue forward with this guy, that is their risk. But letting him go on his way is not devaluing his humanity.

So blacklist him?

@xbob42: no, not at all. It CAN be very well up to Valve to manage these things. We had an uproar regarding the Borderlands 2 release in our region as it was a Russian only version. Shortly after the release all owners of the game in my region received an additional ROW copy, though the segregation between Russian and ROW versions of the game still exists. Worth mentioning, Gearbox or 2K had nothing to do with it. Also, what happened to the game mentioned in this article proves that Valve can, indeed, push publishers.

No!

"Because of a tweet" - the medium does not matter. Because of a death threat. That is the important part!

Saying "I'm gonna kill X" stops being okay when you're around 15 years old!

I applaud you for not letting this one unfortunate exposure to this man be your first and final judgement of him. People are definitely more than the mistakes they make. He could be a decent guy who just said something supremely and dangerously dumb.

That said, I feel pretty confident in saying I wouldn't want to go on a risky business venture with him. Having "I'm going to kill [important person we do business with]. He will die," as your go-to knee-jerk reaction is just plain unsafe for any enterprise. He seems smart enough to know they rely on Steam to make their living, yet was so fast to just explode on it? Yeah, no thanks. He might not be a terrible guy otherwise, but I wouldn't trust my livelihood to someone like that.

Actions have consequences. He'll have to deal with his, just like everyone does.

Well... this is part of the reason game companies have PR handlers and don't always give megaphones to their staff...

Phil Fish 2.0!

And blacklist what? There is no google doc where game studios enter names of people who are "blacklisted". If he doesn't get another job in the games industry it will be because game studios independently probably won't choose to employ a guy who said what he said, and publicly.

Patrick Klepek has said "I hope they die in a fire"!

I think it's excessive.

@spraynardtatum: Think a minute about the difference between those. Start with the context.

Then think about the difference between saying "I hope they die in a fire" and "I AM GOING TO KILL X".

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135296515&postcount=1559

The archive of the public Steam conversation he had with the dev. in question. Mike Maulbeck: "ill get back to you when im done counting my stacks of money"

His "apology", referring to whatever other corporation he would be working for as "shitty."

It's not just about his one inflammatory tweet. The guy's an asshole, straight up.

I recommend you do the same.

Yeah, not going to feel sorry for the idiot who don't know you can't say, 'I am going to kill X' online if you are a public figure head of something.

"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."

Uh...this isn't helping.

Dude has been an asshole for months. They aren't even sorry about the death threats, they're sorry they got caught. Frankly they all deserve it.

@fluxwavez said:

@superkenon said:

@spraynardtatum said:

This guy is now blacklisted for a dumb tweet and that seems to be what a majority of people think is the correct decision. I disagree. I feel that looking at these worthless tweets doesn't come close to giving me a good impression of who Maulbeck is and should not be a defining factor of if this developer is allowed to participate in the workforce. He's passionate and wants the best for his creation. I find that to be an enviable quality in a co-worker. I would work with someone who would say something like this on the internet.

I applaud you for not letting this one unfortunate exposure to this man be your first and final judgement of him. People are definitely more than the mistakes they make. He's very likely a decent guy who just said something supremely dumb.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135296515&postcount=1559

The archive of the public Steam conversation he had with the dev. in question. Mike Maulbeck: "ill get back to you when im done counting my stacks of money"

His "apology", referring to whatever other corporation he would be working for as "shitty."

It's not just about his one inflammatory tweet. The guy's an asshole, straight up.

So it isn't about the death threat? It's about a character flaw?

After you! There is a palpable difference between "Hoping someone dies in a fire" and "I WILL kill X".

Spoiler: One of them is a death threat and one of them is not!

Imagine this:

You're in a restaurant, and someone at the table next to you gets the wrong meal. They start to audibly badmouth the entire joint, saying "Are you fucking kidding me? I just ordered my meal and they brought the wrong one?" until the person waiting on them comes back and offers to replace their meal with the correct one. As the waiter or waitress is walking back, the person says, "This waiter is the most incompetent piece of fucking shit." Still, the person waiting on the table allows them to have their meal

After taking a few bites of their meal, they loudly proclaim that they want to murder the head chef.

If that person got kicked out of the restaurant, would you feel bad for them? Is that acceptable behaviour?

Real life or Twitter, public outbursts like that are disgusting and should not be tolerated by anyone. He deserves to be punished for his idiocy, and Valve has every right to cut ties with someone who resorts to insults and toxicity when things go wrong.

@fluxwavez: Haha, I was more positing that he could be an alright guy for the sake of the point in my next paragraph, but jeeez. I didn't do any digging on this guy. He just went from looking like a dick to looking like an impossibly cartoonish doucheboat. That stuff is... amazing. And sad.

Don't twist my words. You stated the following: "I feel that looking at these worthless tweets doesn't come close to giving me a good impression of who Maulbeck is", and that is what I am objecting to, because we obviously have a pretty good idea, past the tweet that started it all, of what this person's character is like.

Personally, I'd argue that it's never OK, regardless of the age!

We, as a society, need to figure out a way to better deal with these kinds of threats, because whatever we're doing now clearly isn't working. Not just within gaming, but the Internet as a whole. South Korea requires people to use their national ID number when registering an online account, for example. I don't know how well that's working, but if it has been effective for them, maybe the United States and other countries need to consider doing the same. End users could still use handles to remain anonymous among each other, but there would be no such anonymity on the back end. Once identification of those making the threats is established, we can decide how to best address the problem, either through fines, imprisonment, rehabilitation, or some combination thereof. It's a tough situation, though!

No mention of this guy being 20 years old, no mention of the fact that a valuable indie talent has been wiped from history over what should have been a minor speed bump. I think Valve really needs to take scale into consideration here. This isn't EA or Ubisoft with a massive PR team, this is 5 guys. I think Valve should show some grace and charity given the circumstances. "Shoulda known better" is a little harsh for what should amount to a visit to the principal's office. This guy is just a kid, a baby.

This open letter mirrors my thoughts on the matter http://i.imgur.com/1yIciRH.png

and this article http://wethenerdy.com/mike-maulbeck-vs-valve-whos-guilty/

If Gabe Newell were female, Maulbeck would be crucified.

Instead, he's kind of getting a pass.

I'm just saying what's good for the goose...

All I can say is that I hope he learns his lesson and goes on to act in a more professional manner in the future. He deserves the punishment, but I don't enjoy watching the mistake ruin his live. That said, I do hope people take notes from Valve and continue in this practice. People have gotten away with worse simply because it wasn't Gabe Newell they were threatening.

More than that, Maulbeck's version contains a very specific name drop. And the additional clarification that "he will die." Additionally, Patrick's "I hope X dies in a fire" is an annoyingly prevalent phrase that doesn't tend to come across as a declaration to mean harm. Whereas there's almost no context where "I will kill X" doesn't sound like a threat. These two situations are quite different, even if it's their meaning is really only separate due to goofy culture reasons.

But guess what? When Patrick said what he said, he got hella flak for it and lost a lot of listeners for it. And even though I like Patrick and agree with the sentiment that you shouldn't use AdBlock on sites you support, it was a completely dumb way for him to make his point, and any damage he sustained from that comment is completely fair.

I wouldn't be shocked if there's legal action down the line from his partners over lost revenue.

Oh to hell with that.

This isn't a teenager who swore in class, he should be more than old enough to realize that you cannot spectacularly explode at the company advertising and selling your game without facing serious repercussions, especially with all of the other shit going on in the industry at the moment.

Legally speaking you're 100% correct that one would be much more convincing in court if they both made it to that point. I am saying that there isn't much of a difference in the incendiary nature of both of those public statements. I think both comments are incendiary but at the same time shouldn't be having such severe impact on the livelyhood of the person saying it. I think it's excessive.

@jonnyashley said:

The scale of their company doesn't really matter. You cannot in any circumstance do what he did and expect to keep doing business with the other party. Nobody would or should tolerate that to begin with.

And it would set a precedence as well.

Glad I already had the game, then.

What a fucking class-a dumb asshole. The irony in it all is everyone else who worked on the game with this short tempered idiot has to deal with not having their game on Steam at all. This guy deserves all the backlash he's getting. I just feel bad for everyone else that is pretty much left hung out to dry.

I think it's a little early to say his career is over, but making death threats towards people you have business relationships with usually doesn't bode well for your current position. If he were employed at any other company instead of being an indie developer, there's a good chance he would've been let go or at the very least reprimanded. But hey, the guy's 20. Part of growing up and maturing is learning not to say stupid shit when you really want to say it, especially in a format where there is zero room for context.

He shouldn't have done that.

@spraynardtatum said:

You are right there, they are both incendiary and were in obviously in hindsight not meant to be taken seriously. But threats are a serious matter, and I don't see any other way Steam and Valve could have acted. His statement was probably made under a great amount of stress, and will have incredible repercussions for him personally. But there is no other way for Valve to deal with this.

It is a bad situation, but in the end he is to blame and Valve is not. Humans make mistakes, sometimes gross ones, and there are repercussions to them.

He definitely should've been mindful about his opinions. Even though Twitter is a free form of expression, you should watch what you say especially if youre representing a company or business. Now the game that he worked so hard on is removed from Steam, costing his company alot of mula and he was forced to resign from his company. SMH

I've done and said horrific shit on the Internet. I admit this. However, I was never stupid enough to post any kind of death threat. Let alone a lame-ass threat against one of the most fucking powerful individuals in gaming.

Poor Valve, poor Gabe. The kid is 20.

@jonnyashley said:

Poor Valve, poor Gabe. The kid is 20.

Important life lessons, don't fling shit at people who are integral to your companies success.

@dr_insane: Phil Fish also told Marcus Beer, who admitted to attempting suicide via running his car in his garage to kill himself.

Kind of a dick move.

I hate when people try to minimize this kind of stuff by saying it's "just a tweet". Tweets are your words. Tweets aren't some sort of sub-form of language.

A tweet saying you're going to kill someone, should be taken just as seriously as saying you''re going to kill someone in a public setting. It doesn't become less "real" because it''s the internet.

This guy was an idiot, and hurt all of his co-workers by being a hot-head on the internet. I don't feel bad for him; I hope he learns from it.

@sterling said:

Other people have probably said this, but I use the Favorite function for saving or tracking tweets. I don't really have 358 tweets that are my favorite.

The weirdest thing about this for me is the revelation that Valve doesn't allow weekend releases. I thought it was the developers avoiding weekends. Two days out of every week you can check the new releases on Steam and there's nothing there, then on Monday there are ten new games. What's up with that?

@the_nubster: I think you underestimate just how different Twitter is to real life. Acting out like that in person takes a lot more thought. You'd usually have some amount of time to calm yourself down. While on Twitter and the internet in general, it's easy to just throw a few letters together and make a sentence that can haunt you for life.

It's was stupid of him, sure. It's equally stupid of Valve.

I feel a tad bad for his situation. But on the other hand I don't give a crap. Dude needs some serious perspective on life and where he is heading. He isn't going anywhere professionally after this and I doubt it will be easy for him to get any sort of job after this. People do google searches against job candidates all the time. I don't see him getting out of the self-employed state any time soon but I also don't see anyone in the game industry backing him after this.

All in all the kid made a pretty stupid situation the worst it could possibly be in the course of an hour or less. He now has to climb this huge mountain and I feel bad for him. Doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it or that he shouldn't climb.