Not everyone can handle criticism. Digital Homicide wanted 18 million dollars from their own criticizing players.
We have reported several times in the last few days about the Steam reviews, but it is rarely as bizarre as in this case on Valve’s gaming platform.
With a lawsuit against the customers
Of course, many developers do not like it when players write bad reviews about their games, as this scares away potential customers who might have bought the game. However, the developer “Digital Homicide” took this a step further and sued the players for a hefty sum of 18 million dollars. The justification for the lawsuit: defamation.
They demanded that Valve delete the corresponding game reviews and provide the real names along with addresses to Digital Homicide.
At Valve, they did not think much of the idea and promptly removed Digital Homicide from the platform – none of this developer’s games can be purchased there anymore. They did not intend to continue doing business with people who have such a hostile attitude towards their own customers.
Digital Homicide had previously not exactly distinguished themselves positively. The two developers behind the name tried multiple times to get games onto the platform through the Greenlight system. After failing, they simply changed the title of the games and tried again. Lawsuits had already occurred beforehand, as they attempted to sue a game critic for 10 million dollars. Particularly amusing: They intended to raise the money for the court costs of the lawsuit through a crowdfunding campaign.
Cortyn says: These are entirely new attempts of the old motto “Being audacious gets you further” – fortunately, this does not work in this case. Although the whole situation has become a “Positive PR” campaign for Steam, it clearly sends a signal against all developers who value their players and customers as little as these two gentlemen do. On the other hand, not a stupid idea: If the game doesn’t succeed, simply sue the few customers. Perhaps the two are just a very failed version of real satire – nobody knows for sure.
