@onarum: That is a bizarre world view to have. Have you somehow missed how vile the internet in general has been this past time, especially on Twitter? If anything it is the exact opposite of what you say, and people now don't realize that their heinous shitslinging and threats online have real meaning to real people. The only world we seem to be in course for is one where everyone yells at the top of their lungs and feel no remorse for behaving like assholes to anyone.

Human decency tip: Don't threaten people.

That's just it. He was punished, his game was taken off steam. That doesn't mean we need to make a article about him on every gaming website and demonize him for being a terrible person who threatened another humans life, because in all honesty, does anyone actually think he meant what he tweeted? Yes, he is an asshole for not apologizing, but that doesn't mean he had any intent of doing what he tweeted.

There is an old saying a lot of people have forgotten these days. "Talk is cheap." Saying something doesn't make it so, and not everything everyone says should be taken seriously. That doesn't make it okay, but that does mean we need to stop going crazy over someone saying something dumb in a fit of angry frustration. Something I bet we are all actually guilty of doing at some point.

I think it's important to point out once more that he is the one who made Valve's private email response publicly available. Valve almost certainly would have just pulled the game and that would be that. In fact, that's exactly what they did. He certainly has the right to tell his side of the story, but in doing so he also accepts the risk that he's going to incriminate himself, and that's exactly what this guy has done.

Thought that's not to say I necessarily agree with people bombarding him with shit for it. They're not really any better, no.

It's kinda why I do take a littttle bit of issue with this one part from @patrickklepek's article:

Would this have been quietly dealt with privately in another kind of environment? Possibly. But we don't live in that environment right now.

Again, this guy (the one who committed the offense) is the party who continued to make this public; besides (quietly) pulling the game from the store, Valve has dealt with this matter entirely privately and quietly as far as I can tell.

Now, would any news sites have noticed if dude hadn't continued to blow up? No way to know that of course, but games getting pulled from Steam entirely is rare enough that I think it would have been at least noticed regardless of environment, and the flashpoint of the whole thing was quite obviously inherently public regardless.

Truth. But if you're not named Gabe and you're piling on to give this guy shit about what he obviously knows was a dumb thing to do, you might just be a piece of shit.

Even if this guy is unstable or whatever, that doesn't change the fact that thousands of people getting at him telling him what a piece of shit he is is bullying. Plain and simple. It's cowardly, and it serves no point outside making you feel good for stepping on someone. Fucking internet mob mentality is the worst thing in the world and it's not any better if the victim is a scumbag.

And to be clear, I'm not using "you" to refer to you specifically, it's the general "you".

@onarum: There's a big difference between yelling at your little brother in person and tweeting about someone who's essentially your boss.

• The only audience is your brother vs the entire world on twitter
• Your brother knows you where as this guy is essentially a stranger to Gabe. He doesn't know he was just venting
• Your pay check doesn't depend on your little brother. If I yelled "I'm going to kill my boss" at my boss or even in ear shot I'd be out of a job no matter where I work

It's absolutely valid. Steam is a privately owned store, it's their right to choose what products they do and do not want to sell. Nobody has a right to sell things on their store. Believing otherwise is over-entitlement to the point of absurdity. If I was running Steam, I would have stopped carrying his games for the "incompetent" comment alone. If you want to criticize my business, that's fine, but don't expect that you get to do that and still have your products carried by my store.

Note that there's also a downside for Steam which is that they no longer make revenue from selling his product - though that's obviously a teeny drop in the bucket for them.

That "No Shit" comment is actually pretty funny.

By whom, us? He didn't state it towards someone at a higher authoritative position than he is like this Mike person did, so who exactly would ruin his career in your scenario?

This just in, directly threatening to murder another human being downgraded from crime to "silly mistake".

That wasen't his point, hes just stating how easy it is to say something dumb without thinking about context or situation.

Most business partnerships involve a phone number, or an email, and a representative. Case in point: Indie Game the Movie when Team Meat angrily pens a not-so-angry email to their rep on launch day.

The fact that Twitter rants are not aimed at one person is worse, not better, than screaming your head off at a single human being, trying to do their job. It's like standing outside of their office looking like a madman throwing tennis balls at the windows.

It being easy doesn't make it a "silly mistake" as opposed to something more significant. A lot of things can be deemed "silly mistakes", but that doesn't make the repercussions of those actions unjust. It's called self-control, especially in a case like this where one's flying off the handle because of the pettiest of reasons.

I agree, its just a shame and from my point of view its like watching a car crash with life changing repercussions, i guess i just feel for the guy a bit is all.

@blupotato: I've learned to stop myself before posting a comment or a forum reply and think, "Is this going to bring anything to the discussion?" and it turns out half the time the answer is no, so I delete it and move on. I'd like to think more people do this but I'm probably too optimistic.

For example, I'd like to respond to the people attempting to somehow defend his actions and lament his probable exit from game development, but it's not going to go anywhere.

I do feel kind of bad for the guy, but this story is just funny.

Once again, Twitter has made it possible for an idiot to ruin his entire life with just a few keystrokes.

@sanity: Yeah, I'd take that kind of stupid inclusion on a business card as a joke. It's not a very good joke, I'll give you that.

A death threat is not a silly mistake. A death threat meant as a joke is not even a silly mistake. Especially when broadcast out into the internet ether.

Perhaps you could not resist making a dig at the so-called "SJW"s but this is nothing to do with political correctness. I am often on to point out the "slippery slope" of PC thinking to my friends and family, but I can see clearly that this has nothing to do with political correctness, social justice, feminism, et al. The guy made a public, pointed death threat. He made his own bed on this one.

I am sorry to keep replying to your posts on this, but I really wanted to point something out:

Many GB users just finished several days in discussion threads made in part to help educate people on how many industry people make the video game industry a toxic, sexist, and (this is an actual quote) terrifying place for women. How on earth does this guy's actions deserve a free pass? I for one would probably not catch myself before chuckling at the Pornhub link "joke", but I would immediately then sigh and say "THAT'S FUCKED UP."

Another great day for video games.

...and during sunshine and smiles week, to boot.

@honkalot: I still think it was just blown out of proportion, it was obvious that the dude was just speaking out of his ass, like I said, yep what he did was wrong no question about that, but the response is very disproportional to the injury (if there was any..)

How To Be A Prick 101

I guess all he did was... blow off steam?

---

Making the same joke on different websites feels kinda wrong, not sure why. But there you go.

No problems with this. It's actually super refreshing to see someone held accountable to the bile they produce on social media, especially after the last few weeks.

@whitegreyblack: I don't think this guy deserves a free pass. I don't think he's getting a free pass.

I also don't think he deserves having his email twitter and pornhub id displayed here. Don't you agree that that is a little dangerous?

Why does it matter if Gabe would be working with Maulbeck? It's admirable that you're trying to see his good qualities in all this, but the fact remains that the tweets (and that petulant apology he issued too, frankly) speak a ton about his character, especially with regards how he conducts himself in a professional environment. When something goes wrong and he doesn't get what he wants, he goes on a public tirade against the store selling his game and threatens to murder the owner. Why would they want to work with someone as unstable as that? What happens if something actually goes wrong - is he going to threaten to burn the place down with everyone inside if they're late on a royalty payment? Hell, what if he's actually crazy enough to try and kill Gabe? I really can't see how you can fault Valve for not wanting to work with a diva indie developer who throws nasty temper tantrums. Nor can I see why you think this guy is the consequences of this dude not thinking before opening his mouth are somehow unjust treatment, unless you really believe in the right to tell someone on the internet you're going to kill them.

PS: That's quite a false equivalency you got going there bringing up Patrick. Of course, saying that people who do X should die, while pretty douchey, is in nowhere near the same league as singling out a person and saying you are going to murder them (which is a crime, by the way) but nice try.

@iamjohn: I feel for the guy who is experiencing what has probably been the worst day of his life. Sue me.

I feel bad for the other developers on that game.

@asko25 said:

You MUST be kidding that that is your takeaway from my comment. I am not even going to engage you on this shit.

I'm so glad I'm not on twitter.

Seriously, if you can get out, do it. Your sanity is worth it.

To me, trying to explain it away as "crude humor" is akin to trying to give him a pass. I can see the argument, but I do not agree with it.

Yes, I do agree that it is dangerous, and a bad idea.

You cant fuck with Gabe. Rule 1 of PC gaming. This guys failed at rule 1....noob

@whitegreyblack: But you just did...?

Anyways, it's sad to see people from my home town behave like I know they would. The co-creator of the game issued an apology only to by followed up by someone linking this tweet from them. It's pretty ridiculous.

If he didn't threaten to kill someone there wouldn't be a problem either.

I don't think people are ignoring the fact Valve made a mistake. I do see multiple posts trying to ignore this guy made a big mistake.

@extomar: It's kind of hard to ignore the fact that he made a mistake when the thread is 8 pages long. Of course he made a mistake. The worst mistake of his life I'd imagine.

The impression that I get is that this man has a history of being a thin-skinned hothead. He may be 20 years old, but the fact that he's retweeting the people defending his actions shows he hasn't learned anything. He only gets to chalk his bad behavior up to a lack of maturity after he's demonstrated that he's more mature now than he was when he screwed up. He's doing the opposite of that.

@chrissedoff: And we're all watching in judgement.

I believe it was early access, and was supposed to go final at that date.

It wasn't a final release that got labled as early access, it was simply the transition from early access to final that didn't happen at the time mike thought it should have.

It's was a mistake, everyone makes those.

Calling steam "the most incompetent piece of fucking shit" over it is just hyperbolic.

@chilibean_3: It's not Twitters fault. But that doesn't mean it's not a bad thing.

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.

Yep once again cutting off your nose to spite your face