Valve Bans Developer From Steam After It Sues Customers Over Bad Reviews (arstechnica.com) 195
From an ArsTechnica report: A game developer has been banned from Steam after users claimed that it had attempted to sue 100 users of the platform for $18 million -- for the crime of leaving bad reviews. Digital Homicide, which has released dozens of small games mostly available for a couple of quid each, had its titles removed from Valve's popular digital distribution platform on Friday night. Its boss, James Romine, was granted a subpoena by a court in Arizona apparently allowing him to demand the release of "identification and associated data" of anonymous Steam users. The lawsuit listed in turn the misdemeanours of dozens of John/Jane Does, which include counts of "harassment," "stalking," and "cyber-bullying." In a brief e-mail sent to Vice's Motherboard at the end of last week, Valve's marketing veep Doug Lombardi confirmed that "Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers."
First Post - Great move Valve! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First Post - Great move Valve! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm indifferent to them. I wish I didn't have to use them to play games, but, for bloat/spy/drmware they do a decent job.
They're clearly in the right here. Kudos to them for blocking a client and any revenue they would have got selling that client's games. Long term this is a smart move and besides being "right" will also help them retain customer loyalty.
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Re:My favorite from TFA... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe ANYONE associated with this dev could think this was a good idea. It's possible you could have a user or two make serious threats, but 100? Sorry, didn't happen.
And if you make games so bad as to inspire 100 people to send you death threats, maybe you should re-evaluate your chosen career...
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Re:My favorite from TFA... (Score:5, Informative)
This same company is suing Jim Sterling (a video game reviewer) for giving them bad reviews. It's been very public and with what they've done with Sterling, this seems exactly in their character. And what's really bad is this company got Jim Sterlings eye because they mostly just sell what's called "asset flips", where they buy some art assets off of the Unity asset store, and then just sell the demo for them on Steam for $10 a pop. They're scum.
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It has been worse then that -- some of these companies have actually tried to issue a DMCA against him and take-down his channel due to his bad reviews! WTF.
You can see "Uncrowded" assets flips in his review @ 3:08
Top Ten Shittiest Games of 2015 (The Jimquisition)
https://youtu.be/8nd6I9W_z6Y?t... [youtu.be]
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It would apply only if Rommie had fucked Sterling for a good mention.
On the surface it just looks like you're looking for something to bitch about. Two people put up worthless games, only the SJW is defended by other twits.
Re:My favorite from TFA... (Score:5, Informative)
So all the outrage over "ethics in gaming journalism " [lolllz] doesn't apply here because it's not about a woman?
Actually, this is also about "ethics in gaming journalism": Jim Sterling has some. He's been sued, banned, and dis-invited by a variety of publishers because he actually gives bad reviews. He's willing to lose pre-release reviewer copies from a publisher if that's what it takes to call a shit game shit.
Jim Sterling and Total Biscuit are the only video game reviewers I trust these days - I assume everyone else self-censors bad review to keep a "good relationship" with publishers, as the preponderance of evidence is that they do. Jim Sterling likes to review bad games, and TB has moved to only giving air time to good games, so they're complementary.
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'Worth a buy' https://www.youtube.com/user/W... [youtube.com] game reviews are also not to bad. The best game yet I have found for exposing shite reviewers is Witcher 3 (my go to for checking a game reviewer), the higher the score, beyond the realistic one of say 7, the worse the reviewer, 10 just ignore them.
Youtubers who think they can get away with this over the long term are foolish and just being treated by idiots by the advertisers scamming them, they fully intend to burn through them and then replace them over
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Did you actually watch the video? It was more along the lines of: if you haven't learned yet about pre-orders, you really haven't been paying attention. Fool me 100 times, shame on me.
I've watched too many NMS reviews to keep them all straight, but the hype was absurd on this one, as in death threats to Reddit posters who posted when the launch date slipped. People had gone over the top for NMS, and that deserves to be called out. If you're a rabid fanboy (at any time really, but before the game even la
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Go at some place gg is reunited, try "attacking" let's say Roberta Williams or Jane Jensen and getting out of there in one piece.
They do lie about the whole "ethics in gaming journalism" being their final goal, as what they actually want are good games, instead of barely interactive movies or "games" written in HTML.
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And if you make games so bad as to inspire 100 people to send you death threats, maybe you should re-evaluate your chosen career...
Good thing Larry Ellison doesn't make games.
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Not talking about credible death threats here, or even something you could call a direct threat at all.
For example, one oft-quoted reviewer wrote "I want to murder every single person responsible for this". No reasonable person would take that seriously, that random gamer would literally hunt down and kill all of DH's employees.
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I think Valve would be acting reasonably to ban that individual from posting reviews or forum comments though. Even stupid death threats are a level of abuse that a company can choose not to allow on their platform.
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I would put my effort in tracking down the miscreants who think it is important to harass the guy. Sure suing the customers for a bad review is bad and stupid, but the people putting in such a response such as threats and sending feces in the mail isn't funny. Such stupid things will only strengthen his case that he has been injured from the incident, and makes him more of the victim.
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while not human feces, you could send him a nice bag of manure as a gift using amazon.
prime eligable!
https://www.amazon.com/Hoffman... [amazon.com]
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Maybe those people should grow the fuck up and stop acting like teenage shitlords.
You do realize that even teenage shitlords have internet access?
Steam is the best of these networks by far (Score:4, Interesting)
And credit where credit is due, I haven't had the Steam client do something amazingly stupid in ages.
On the other hand, what happens if these paragons of virtue somehow lose control of the company?
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"Startup" ? Why would you ever turn it off. Just let it load on boot, never reboot, and be happy : )
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I haven't had the Steam client do something amazingly stupid in ages.
Get a steam controller. It's quite buggy.
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Valve is privately held, so it being snatched away in a buy and kill a competitor move isn't as likely.
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No, there is zero news or information on that.
There is an article on Sony buying Valve from April 1, 2014, but that lacks credibility for obvious reasons.
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Sony has barely enough money to keep itself afloat, let alone buy the most successful PC distributer.
So what? Throughout history there have been many companies who made acquisitions they couldn't afford -- trying to buy their way to success. It's also one of the leading causes of bankruptcies.
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Sony has barely enough money to keep itself afloat, let alone buy the most successful PC distributer.
So what? Throughout history there have been many companies who made acquisitions they couldn't afford -- trying to buy their way to success. It's also one of the leading causes of bankruptcies.
Of course but Sony doesn't have the capital to even do that. They just sold off their PC gaming division last year. I don't see them jumping back into it.
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I'm guessing you have never heard of GOG.COM?
I have. Their library of games I want to buy is... well, it's been exhausted already. Nice try, though. It also is completely irrelevant to what will happen to my Steam DRM-"protected" titles...
More like (Score:5, Funny)
More like Digital Suicide! Hur-hur-hur — I'll see myself out.
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More like Digital Suicide! Hur-hur-hur — I'll see myself out.
That was how I read it at first. I thought it was an oddly appropiate name.
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More like
Score: 5, Swift kick in the ass.
Signed,
Red Forman.
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What the fuck is Facebook?
Digital Homicide is known for this. (Score:4, Informative)
Digital Homicide is known for this type of shit. I have lost count of the times Jim Sterling [thejimquisition.com] has brought them up whenever they were screwing around again.
It would be nice to see Valve/Steam finally getting up to some quality management and start kicking out the assholes and doucebags. Digital Homicide is a very good start.
Current Exchange quid to buck (Score:1)
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For the non-english speakers a quid is equal to 1.3 bucks.
When I go buck hunting, I bring home two whole bucks. Anyone who tries to walk off with two-thirds of my buck will get an ass full of lead. :P
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Poacher!
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Poacher!
I don't think I can use a poacher to cook buck.
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Tom Lehrer explains all this very clearly. [youtu.be]
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What's that in Pieces of Eight?
Homocide or suicide? (Score:2)
Sounds like they need to change their name to Digital Suicide, cause that's basically what they did. I have no idea who they were before, but I certainly won't be buying anything from them now.
Company name change is in order (Score:2)
Death threats was going too far (Score:2)
I did a little digging. Apparently the developer was getting comments consisting of death threats. They even show some of their website. Apparently they reported these to Valve but nothing came of it. So this story has more to it than what the one-sided summary Slashdot is giving people.
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Apparently the developer was getting comments consisting of death threats.
Clearly, this is due to prevalent sexism in gaming and we should rally around this "developer" to fight off these GG aggressors.
Rhodes pianos (Score:3)
Unfortunately Brandstetter turned out to be an aggressive trademark bully, suing any website or musical instrument company using the "Rhodes" trademark. He made the fatal mistake of making infringement threats against the largest collection of potential Rhodes customers - the website fenderrhodes.com where fans of the "vintage era" Rhodes piano hang out to discuss all things Rhodes. Brandstetter managed to p!ss off the members and site owners so much that no discussion of Brandstetter's pianos are permitted at all. In an act of defiance, the website never changed its name. News got around the web and sales dropped off. A few years later, Brandstetter was seeking buyers for his company. I don't know what became of it, but the outcome of that fiasco was that few of the new pianos ever made it out of the factory.
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Well, the entitlement generation grew up by now and they can open businesses. What did you expect?
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One less (Score:2)
Re:WTF is a quid? (Score:5, Informative)
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A quid has only every meant one pound to me. 13 quid is perfectly fine colloquial English to me.
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Perfectly fine colloquial English to those Oxford folks as well.
Re: WTF is a quid? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, I know that place. All my computer RAM is made there.
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or is it too much for submitters to write in grown up English and not teenie language
Quid = UK equivalent of a "buck".
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Ok, but how much in Guineas?
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Hopefully everyone realizes that pounds/shillings/pence is not how things are measured in the UK anymore. Currency was decimalized a long time ago in Britain.
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What, no more tuppence to spare??
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It's an english deer?
Signed,
a Canadian.
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Ok, in that case it's the UK equivalent of a "loonie". (talk abut teenie language!)
Re:WTF is a quid? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WTF is a quid? (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed, it is fairly hard to understand foreign languages like Great Britainniash..
To clarify a couple of quid is around 500 Albanian Leks
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Just in the event that those who still don't understand, 500 Albanian Leks is about 320 Bengladeshi Taka.
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Re:WTF is a quid? (Score:4, Funny)
Or about 250 Trillian Zimbabwean dollars.
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How much is that in football fields?
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Two thirds of a Beowulf cluster.
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Re: WTF is a quid? (Score:2)
Quid is slang for a British pound, much like "buck" is slang for a US dollar.
So it's casual, but proper, English -- Englisher than your English at that.
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Yeah, but I thought it was 20 pounds, but perhaps that's a stone.
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No 20 pounds is a score, 25 a pony, 100 a ton and 500 a monkey.
I would score with a pony to get a ton of moneys.
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I suspect he knew that- he was just practicing "American Exceptionalism" to try and rile people up. Only Americanisms are acceptable on the World-Series Wide Web.
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or is it too much for submitters to write in grown up English and not teenie language
Troll, meet Google.
Google, meet Troll.
Now the two of you are acquainted you can now look up terms and expressions that you don't understand.
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Remember, the US isn't the only country whos primary language is English.
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or is it too much for submitters to write in grown up English and not teenie language
It is English. I suspect that you are the one with the funny accent.
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Squid is good eating.
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That's a typo you misread. It was supposed to be "5 quid" and without the space you read that as "squid".
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Don't care. I wonder how much squid I can get for 5 quid... now I'm hungry.
Unlikely you'd keep squid in your wallet (Score:3)
> one of the shipboard currency substitutes was the otherwise useless saltwater squid that they would sometimes catch.
There are many possible explanations, and that is probably the least likely. Probably most likely is that it comes from 'quid pro quo' (trade one thing for another).
A substitute currency is far more likely to be something like cigarettes/tobacco or rum which has some value to many members of the group. If you catch "otherwise worthless" squid from time to time, why on earth would you giv
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A pound? A pound of what?
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of silver, historically.
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Nice troll, you've really brought out the ass-pies.
Please speak proper English, it's Arse-Pies.
Arse-pies (Score:3)
When I moved to the USA, I was briefly confused as to why the Steak and Kidney pies tasted different. Turns out they have steak in over here. (See also, Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler [wikia.com].)
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I've never seen a Steak and Kidney pie (or any kind of Steak pie) in the US after living here for 25 years. They have Chicken Pot Pie- and that's about the extent of American pies (besides sweetened pies). America is very lacking in the pie department. Occasionally, I'll see a Jamaican Pasty.
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The internet is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think your shiny new N.A.S. has a huge storage capacity, but that's just peanuts to The internet.
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So ... it IS like my NAS?
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I suspect you're right. He's highly litigious, sounds like he is more interested in working hard to make money without merit than working hard to produce a product people actually want to buy.
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The old saying is right:
Those who can, do.
Those who can't, sue.
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How did they game the Greenlight system?
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IIRC Steam has a "I got this game for free" checkbox with their reviews? Is that for decoration only?
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"Almost"? Does that mean you don't have something like that in the US?