What you say on the Internet matters, and a surprisingly high number of people need to come to terms with that. The ongoing controversy is testament to that.

This guy just made a stupid mistake out of anger, if he does not show a pattern of this I think we can just count this as a strike on his record and move on. He made a mistake. Other people though, I am not so sure about.

People are talking about a Twitter boycott because of their lack of action on crap like this. I have been using it less and less but I may just quit altogether. If people are allowed to behave like this with little repercussion, maybe Twitter isn't an appealing place to be anymore. I think I am done.

Twitter simply closes the account, but doesn't go further to prevent the person from creating another account and continueing the reprehensible behavior. They avoided the image of being complicit by shutting down accounts, but now they need to do more or else they will be seen as enabling the behavior. Every website needs to do more, many get it right but a lot still don't. If the person shows a pattern of antisocial behavior they need to be banned from engaging in public discourse, take away their internet privileges like the courts do with hackers and violent predators. Sadist shouldn't be allowed on the internet.

If I were Valve, I'd offer to pay for Anger Management therapy for the guy. Good Guy Gabe.

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.

Does this guy not know when to keep his mouth shut? I'm sure one of those "shitty corporations" will be so quick to hire him after that comment. That comment wasn't necessary. Just say, "I fucked up, I'm sorry about it, and I hope I can continue working in this industry."

Twitter and anger don't go well together.

It's just become silly. Millions of voices shouting about a million different things all at once on Facebook/Twitter. Social media needs to go away for a while so we can all just have happier lives without death threats and controversy every 5 seconds. It was probably the best decision I've made in a while to just stop checking everything that everyone posts on Facebook or Twitter. We all have enough to worry about as it is without the stupidity of silly geese who want the wrong kind of attention. Go home, hug your loved ones, and play video games. That's what I do every day. And I'm a happier son-of-a-bad-word for it.

Internet manchild learns he needs to act like an adult if he wants to make a career for himself. A good and appropriate moral in this, the fourteenth year of the Willenium.

If I worked with this guy I would be blowing up in his face right now.

The bigger issue is that Twitter is appallingly bad at doing anything about all the harassment that takes place on their platform daily.

Sounds like Valve handled this the right way, hopefully they also contacted the police. Death threats are illegal, you know.

That sucks that this guys career is now basically ruined because of a single outburst. I feel like people are obsessed with over analyzing everything nowadays. It's fucking terrifying how serious the results are for saying something moronic on Twitter. Fucking terrifying. And people want the response to be even worse now.

It does go to show you that cooler heads prevail. I'd say more people need to stop using Twitter altogether.

@pimblycharles said:

Why would I not vent my frustration on my own public diary?

Why would I not put out things I should keep to myself on a public space where everyone can see it?

I just don't understand.

@splodge said:

I agree. It's early, but I think we have a strong candidate for this week's "Twitter Twit Tweet of the Week" Award.

If this is sarcasm, then haha funny.

If not, then there's this thing called "the world" and it doesn't work the way everyone wants it to.

And yet people still praise Phil Fish.

Judging by the first set of tweets, it wouldn't appear that he has much in the way of foresight.

I'm not sure how I would feel about the game going back on Steam at this point. No one else in his team did anything wrong, but their game did get a bunch of extra publicity from this event. That said, it's pretty negative publicity, so they'll probably struggle with a bunch of negative reviews from people based on reasons unrelated to the game. I suppose personally, I feel bad enough for the rest of the team that if it were my decision, I'd let them back on Steam.

Wow...

Time for some anger management classes, dude.

This whole thing is fascinating in that train-wreck kind of way. This was all completely avoidable and never should have happened. It's really quite tragic. Today should have been one of the happiest days for him and this company. Too bad he couldn't keep himself together.

My father taught me an important lesson: "Think before you say anything"

I think this applies to twitter as well.

I'll give him credit for owning up to his mistake. With any luck, he'll learn from it and move on, and maybe Valve will give him a second chance. But, man, anger management is probably the most important skill in the world. Geeze.

@seveword said:

Don't worry it's sarcasm.

My girlfriends sister (and for a while my brother but luckily he stopped) likes to be passive aggressive on Facebook like no one can see her except her friends but the people she is talking about are on her friends list. Drives my girlfriend insane hahaha. I'm well acquainted with people inappropriately venting on social media.

This is Natural Selection at its best.

@monkfishesq: he didnt threaten to kill anyone.

If you ever wondered why companies have PR firms control their developer interviews and manage their message, this is why.

Breaking News: Person said dumb shit and met the consequences, now lets move on. Feels like we make a huge deal out of something like this every week. I also find it funny a lot of the comments here are some sort of woe humanity comments, like seriously? He did say something incredibly immature and stupid on something he shouldn't of, but he clearly said it out of anger. I don't know the guy but he was probably stressed from working on the game and might have some anger issues, and when you're that stressed it's easy to fly off the handle. A lot of people here seem content to just say "Fuck that guy" as if they have never had a lapse of judgement and made a mistake, y'know like a normal human being does.

@rowr: Totally. You spend so much time on something like that and you get emotionally invested. You get stressed. You get overly protective and reactive. And you can make a dumb mistake.

But that's Twitter's fault because...?

In this episode of "Angry People do Stupid Things."

Hopefully this guy's bad behaviour does not adversely affect the rest of the dev team. His final statement shows, however, that he has learned nothing from this ordeal.

Some people lack so much common sense. It's one thing to criticize Steam but why on earth would you take it a step further and issue a death threat, however sarcastic/unrealistic as it may be? Especially considering the other, much more crazy shit that has been going on lately. Just keep your mouth shut.

I think most people would agree Phil Fish has not always acted appropriately on twitter. I don't remember him ever threatening to kill a business partner over game launch issues though.

Except for that one time in indie game the movie when he was waiting for dude to sign the divorce papers or whatever.

@hagane: "haha don't worry guys, I wasn't really going to hijack an airplane and fly in into the whitehouse, it was just hyperbole! why are you arresting me?"

No. Actions have consequences.

That's a shame. Paranautical Activity is a hell of a game. One of the best Doom-shooters in years.

To quote from Scarface, 'It's your tree, Frank, you're sittin' in it."

Can't feel too much empathy for the guy. Pure idiocy and another brick in the 'gamers are angry, entitled idiots' wall of shame.

Wow. Also, stop threathening people!

The internet is the new "face to face" and it is so hurtful - all of this hatered. I hope everyone that is being hateful on the internet learns something from this. That hurting other people is bad, and that it reflects badly on you.

The funny part is the banner thing was fixed in under a hour. So this dude basically ruined everything he's been working on for atleast a year because he had to go from 0 to death threat in a hour.

And I very much hope that he never sees this game get up on Steam.

People need to learn that just because it's the internet and you don't have to look someone in the face when you disparage them, THAT BEHAVIOR IS NOT OK and will not be put up with.

Based on his tweets after this, he still hasn't quite learned the lesson. All of this is a result of his actions and behavior. Until he owns that, or shows signs of at least trying, this is all on him and him alone.

Twitter its pretty great you guys, at exposing idiots.

What a great fellow! He must be a riot at dinner parties!

"ended in me sarcastically saying I was going to kill Gabe Newell"

Yup, sarcasm, that's what that is

At least this is more downright embarrassing than alarming, I'm glad most of us agree on that much.

Twitter is starting to resemble the worst parts of 4chan in how unfiltered and crass it can be, except without the aid of anonymity. With so many given a voice on the internet, I think it just serves to highlight these sorts of childish outbursts from people who are so far beyond the pale that they've lost all sense of accountability.

Perfect defense. It's so hard to pick it out in text.

Especially when it's surrounded by multiple angry outbursts. Shoulda used emoticons.

I feel bad for this guy. He screwed up, and he's acknowledged it, but can't escape it... how would you feel in his shoes?

@madroxcide: 'Nuff said.

Terrible, I imagine. And rightly so. I think Valve handled the situation correctly.

That said, all the lemmings jumping on the bandwagon to give him shit on twitter are not doing anyone any good either.

Oh you didn't hear? That's apparently "the good fight".