Valve Removes All Digital Homicide’s Games From Steam After Company’s Lawsuit

You may remember Digital Homicide from their encounters with video game personality Jim Sterling. The gaming critic is currently being sued by the video game developer for defamation of character in an ongoing case, all because he gave an honest review of the games. Now the same company has had all its games pulled from the Steam service after it filed a subpoena against 100 Steam users as part of a new lawsuit.

[Ashlen]

These guys are total clowns. Trying to get rich via lawsuit really really shady lawsuits at that. I don't know if Jim Sterling will do a video about this considering he is one of their targets. But I know if he does he'll rip them a new anus and it'll be hilarious.

[Shaun2k5]

I suspect Sterling will shy away from it - at least while his case is still ongoing.

[Ashlen]

Probably, but it's a real shame. These guys are a comedy gold mine.

[NotEvenMyFinalForm]

Talking about Sterling, the guy was sued for 10 millions! LooooL

[Vegamyster]

@NotEvenMyFinalForm

Jim said they bumped it up to 15 mill lol.

[Godmars290]

"These guys are a comedy gold mine."

Until they find a judge who takes them seriously. Then they set precedent and become a horror show...

[Ashlen]

That's extremely unlikely. Even if they win, the case would be appealed. It's extremely unlikely that they could win all the way up to and beyond the supreme court. I mean the Jim Sterling case is pretty much open and shut. He has the legal right to review games and say negative things about them

[rainslacker]

That's not likely.

In sterlings case, the impetus is on the company to prove that Jim's statements were untrue. All Jim has to do is show that the examples he gave were taken from somewhere else, and he's pretty much off the hook. Even if he was extremely hostile in his presentation, there are no laws which say he can't be. If this company had a case, they'd have a lawyer who would work on the case on spec, and they wouldn't be representing themselves. The fact they're representing themselves, against Sterlings actual experienced lawyers, means the case will likely never get to actual litigation.

In this case, there is no law which states people can't have an opinion. There is no law that states that people's opinions can't be hostile or snarky. Unless they do something which is damaging in some way, it is covered within the 1st amendment. This "hate movement" can be organized or not, but you can't sue people for their opinions. Hence, no judge would ever allow it to come to court to be set in precedent because they will not risk that tenuous relationship the law has with the 1st amendment.

Thing is, you don't get to shop around for judges. You get one chance, and then an appeal, and then in some cases you can go to the supreme court of the state, then supreme court of the nation. But without legal representation, they are unlikely to get past the first stage to even get a judgement for court and likely it would be sent to arbitration where lack of legal representation will kill them, and so far, since no one seems to be on their side making a fuss about it, a petition for it to be heard by the supreme court of either the state or nation is pretty much out of the question.

@Ashlen

There are libel issues involved in Sterlings case based on him claiming they stole assets. But it's on the company to prove it's false, not Sterling to prove it's true. Sterling, I believe, showed or followed up on what assets were stolen or used without permission, so he's pretty much in the clear on that, and any case involving them not agreeing with a review would not even be entertained by a court....as you say.

[rainslacker]

Sterling will be advised to stay away from the issue if he is currently in litigation by his own lawsuit. He isn't required to, but it's generally not advisable to antagonize the situation, which could lead to more ammo to use against him.

Other than that, these people seem to hope to make more off these frivolous lawsuits than they ever would off their games. It's really sad, but it's pretty obvious they care nothing about the art of making games. Libel is a serious thing for many(the thing they're suing Sterling for), but you can't sue someone for having an opinion(those in this suit), regardless of if it's organized or not.

Steam is right to remove their games IMO. The suit puts their users security and identity at risk, and Steam does often tend to protect it's users pretty well. I would hope the way this is all going that other stores decide to be proactive, and simply remove any sources of revenue for this petty developer. I was willing to entertain their suit against Sterling, because he's a professional making potentially libelous statements which I assume they'd be able to refute in a lawsuit....which would be required by them, and they wouldn't be representing themselves had they a real claim....but it was not against the consumer of the game expressing their opinion, and unless someone does something out of bounds, attacking the consumer base is just a really bad thing no company that wishes to stay in business would actually do.

[Ashlen]

I'm not sure if I would "entertain" their lawsuit. Even if you don't take it as a review it's humor. And if you were to allow them to win. Whats next suing things like SNL when they poke fun at people?

I have watched the video and I am not a lawyer or a judge but I didn't find anything in it to be libelous. If they win it would have to be appealed because that would be a terrible ruling that would set a massive barrier on both reviews and humor. I mean if reviews aren't allowed to say negative things the whole system is broken and the same could be said about comedy.

Edtied to add:

Not to mention the fact they are claiming 15 million in damages. I would like to know how they plan to make any kind of valid case that if Jim hadn't made his video that the product in question would have earned 15 million in revenue. Maybe (and a big maybe) they would have had some sympathy if they had asked for say $100,000 or something realistic.

[rainslacker]

I was willing to entertain it on the fact that there was a potentially libelous claim when Sterling stated that they used Stolen assets. In addition, Sterling did discuss it outside of reviews, and he was quite hostile towards the developer which came from a series of events where each side antagonized the other. The hostility itself isn't something that can be sued over, outside blatant harassment, but potentially libelous comments should not be allowed, regardless of if it's satire or not. Good satire stays true, and exaggerates reality, it doesn't make stuff up to twist the facts to the point of libel.

Been a while since I payed attention to it all, but I believe the actual libelous claims were not in the review, but rather a blog post about one of their games or the dev itself.

That being said, the time when I was willing to entertain they had a valid claim on that one aspect alone has passed, because to date, they haven't done anything to try and prove otherwise, and they wouldn't have to represent themselves if they could prove they didn't use stolen assets. Even if they couldn't afford a lawyer, they could get one to take it on the potential for winning down the road, and 10-15 million wouldn't make it hard to get proper representation.

Now they just seem petty and vindictive, and feel they care nothing about their games, their users, and only seek for a big pay day so they can retire because their games aren't doing it for them.

[FasterThanFTL1]

Nobody messes with Valve.

[INMATEofARKHAM]

Eh... I wouldn't give Valve too much credit here... Their lax standards, and way too hands off approach, to Steam allowed these clowns to release a constant stream of crap.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad Valve stepped in but they enabled them.

[Shaun2k5]

I agree with you here. Valve could have ended this long before this stage was hit.

[NotEvenMyFinalForm]

Even if they just release crap Steam has a refund and review system too., so if you get scammed it's because you wanted. But Valve just wants to give devs freedom unlike Sony and MS that would never allow a game like Hatred to be played on their systems.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Absolutely completely 100% agree

[Perjoss]

Totally agree, it really wouldn't cost Valve much to have a small team of people to keep tabs on devs who release garbage on their service.

[ShaunCameron]

@ Shaun2k5

They did exactly that back in their early years and gamers complained about not having enough games to choose from.

@ NotEvenMyFinalForm

That's because the whole Custer's Revenge fiasco isn't lost on Sony or Microsoft despite entering the console market much later than Nintendo, who was around to watch it unfold.

What freedom? Valve hardly allows AO-rated games to be sold in its platform, Hatred aside.

[Antifan]

Valve, Our Lord and Savior.

[Shubhendu_Singh]

Oh man I actually LOL'd seeing Valve finally banning these devs.

I mean suing Sterling was one thing. but suing 100 normal reviewers just because they left a bad review is stupendous to a degree I never thought was possible.

[SonyWarrior]

looks like lord gaben has the last laugh

[mkis007]

Pretty sure they will lose...First sign of this is they are representing themselves/ no lawyer thinks they can win.

[Elwenil]

The lack of a lawyer tells us that either they do not have the money to support a real lawsuit or they don't take it seriously enough to want to invest money in it. As others have said this could just be just another frivolous suit intended to bring publicity, or they could be going full retard. So far their actions seem to be a lot like other "fly by night" businesses which would suggest that after they burn all their opportunities with this venture the business will go bankrupt only for the owners, brothers no less, to reopen under a new name and start the whole cycle over.

[RiPPn]

Can't wait for the inevitable "Digital Homicide sues Valve" headline.

[rainslacker]

That'll be fun. Valve has some serious lawyers. Heck, Sterling has lawyers who will rip these guys apart in a court, or even before it gets to court. They can drown them in paperwork which they will have no idea how to handle properly, delaying the process indefinitely. In the mean time, they ruin their reputation, hoping for some sort of settlement which is unlikely to come, just so they can make bank and retire from the business. Going forward though, they pretty much ruined their future prospects, a bit with Sterling, now pursuing the community itself. The further they take this, the worse it's going to get for them.

I'd be on their side if they could prove they didn't use stolen assets, but since they aren't even trying to do that, it's hard to take them seriously. Can't speak on if their games are any good, but given what I've read about them, all this negative publicity isn't helping them.

[darx]

It's "subpoena" by the way.

[Shaun2k5]

My bad haha. Not sure how a Y crept in there

[sho0ok]

Good job steam... Others will take advantage of this if they allowed it.

[TheVigilanteCode]

"DID YOU DELIST MY GAMES??? I'M SUING YOUR COMPANY. GET READY GABEN!!!"

[MasterCornholio]

After demanding the identities of over 100 people who spoke badly about the game I'm not surprised that Valve did this.

[GrimmyReaper]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh you so deserve this you assholes xD

[Enigma_2099]

All they had to do was make good games. They were too sorry to even try.