NEWS
Attack On GabeN
Gabe Newell is a pretty well liked guy in the gaming world. Being the co-founder of Valve and an integral part to the creation of the loved Half Life series as well as the popular Steam game service can help skyrocket you in popularity afterall, and to some extremes, some would even refer to him as a godlike entity called GabeN. So what happens when a man threatens a gaming world demigod? Well, it plays out something like this. In an incident yesterday after Steam accidentally listed the new indie title Paranautical Activity developed by Mike Maulbeck as being in Early Access. While frustrating I'm sure, it prompted Mike to go on a rant on Twitter via his @SpooderW account on a childish crusade to vent his anger. It went a little something like this, though I've censored some of the wording in case young children are reading.
This is just a taste of what ultimately ended in Paranautical Activity being removed from Steam. But since Mike Maulbeck removed the tweet that actually prompted the removal of the game, some people are under the impression that Valve removed the title just because. Well, that's false, as it was actually a tweet that was perceived as a death threat towards Gabe Newell himself. The man who probably has never heard of Paranautical Activity, nor really cared, who has an entire staff working under him, became the target of Mike's rant.
Now, there are two ways to look at this; everyone has been angry enough at some point in their life where they've threatened to kill someone. Most of us get this out of our system before age 12, but almost all of us have done it. Most of us don't take to a public forum and threaten a well known and liked person however, and in this day and age people tend to take even statements smaller than this as 'death threats'. So after this tweet, which has now been removed by Maulbeck, Paranautical Activity was removed from Steam. Maybe Mr. Maulbeck will keep his temper in check in the future, maybe not. What are your thoughts on the situation? Did Maulbeck go too far? Did Valve respond appropriately?