Valve removes 'customer-hostile' games developer from Steam

[HEXUS]

Digital Homicide was trying to sue 100 Steam games critics for around £14 million.

Read more.

[EndlessWaves]

Hopefully it'll be a wakeup call for developers who only distribute their games with Steamworks.

[QuorTek]

Wake up call for developers to not promise more than what they grant.

[iworrall]

Derek (Line of Defence) Smart next, please!

[Moogly]

Death to asset-flipping developers!

[Marenghi]

I'd be careful Hexus, with the truly stunning logic of the developers you might be in the crosshairs next!!

[this_is_gav]

You forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliot! Give the people what they want! (add sea drill here)

[Jasp]

You forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliot! Give the people what they want! (add sea drill here)

Is it sad i know what film this is from.....

[QuorTek]

Give the target group of the game what they want would be more accurate as it is, but most companies try to appeal to all instead of those groups that would be interested in playing this or that game.

You can't make an FPS game for all and if you do... you end up ruining the endgame product.. see EA/DICE with SWBF and BF1

[Saracen]

I'd be careful Hexus, with the truly stunning logic of the developers you might be in the crosshairs next!!

I'm not sure if that was intended to be serious or lighthearted, but it is indeed sn issue we keep a careful eye on. Which is why one post has already been deleted.


WARNING FROM ADMIN TO POSTERS IN THIS THREAD

By all means discuss the content of this news item, but stop using gratuitously insulting and potentially defamatory personal attacks.

Doing so has the potential not only to get you, the poster, sued butcsldo to get HEXUS sued as the "publisher". While we would suggest getting yourself sued is not a good idea, we really do object to you getting us sued too.

Make no mistake, I am not joking about this. We will remove all such posts and if it continues after this warning, suspend posters.

Individuals out there probably regard all this "suing" talk as hypothetical, alarmist and a bit of a game. IT IS NOT, and we have the lawyer's bills to prove it. It can get right expensive, very quickly indeed, and is not a place we intend to go again because a user gets carried away.

So by all means discuss, but do so with some self-control.

[Saracen]

As for the legal dispute, I don't know enough about either party to have an opinion on the rights and wrongs.

I will say, though, that it is quite possible that some of these "negative" reviews were unjustified, malicious and defamatory. The thing is, speaking as a professional journalist, negative reviews can indeed be very damaging, so if you're going to write a highly negative review, you had better both be right in what you say, and be able to back it up with evidence.

Before I write a highly negative review, I make ery sure I have photos, test printouts, research notes, details of explanations sought and, in many situations, reactions from and feedback about the problems I had from the company,

Why do I go to such lengths?

Because I've had rare occasions when someone has so disliked my opinions that they threatened to sue. If the company making that threat has deep pockets, it is a VERY intimidating threat to face, as defending such a case is likely to cost many tens of thousands at a minimum and complex cases can run to 6 or even 7 digit legal bills and settlements. Do you, dear reader, fancy q £100,000 bill to defend yourself? What about £500,000? More than that? No, I thought not.

Fortunately, I had a multinational publisher with very deep pickets and in-house lawyers on my side, but THEY wanted to be sure that, first, I would factually stand behind my negative review, AND second, could back it up, in court if need-be, Because I could, their response to the threat was "see you in court". At which point, the threatener thought better of it.


So I've seen it both ways - threats of legal action used to try to intimidate and suppress negative reviews, and unjust and even malicious reviews designed to deliberately damage or destroy a company.

And that's why I have no view on this case, having not used to the products in question or read the reviews.

But what does worry me is the extent of monopolistic power available to Steam, and the potential for arbitrary application or even abuse of that power. Which is why, personally, in part at least, I refuse point blank, to buy any game that requires Steam.

[Corky34]

......so if you're going to write a highly negative review, you had better both be right innwhat you say, and be able to back it up with evidence.

I get the impression some of the "reviews" were anything but, that's unless you consider death threats and the like to be a review.

[jimbouk]

Doesn't sound like this was dealt with very well by anyone. Individuals posting death threats to the company, Steam not moderating their forums effectively, and the company threatening legal action to a large number of people. For the company to keep any high ground on this then they should have got law enforcement involved rather than suing people.

[bledd]

Digital Homicide.. more like Digital Suicide.

This will be a hard stain to remove from their reputation.

[virtuo]

If the reasons for suing are what they say then I guess it's fair enough - nobody wants to be on the end of a bunch of internetters hell-bent on causing your trouble. Seems like a lot of money they are after but hey, America!

I'd suspect there are plenty of legitimate reviews that also rate their titles poorly that would influence buyers decisions, and most people are sensible enough to a) get more than one opinion and 2) not pay much attention to Steam user reviews.


I can understand Steams angle, they've got more customers than developers - I wonder if they'd do the same to a big player like 2K or Rockstar.

[Vorlon99]

Forgive me if I missed where this was explained, but if steam has removed all these products from sale (no opinion on this at the moment), does this now mean that those (potentially few) buyers who want to play what they have already bought can no longer do so.... do the games disappear from their library? Do they get a refund from Steam if steam have removed the game(s)?