Yeah, I kinda thought that this was going to be a Felicia Day comic myself.Uriel_Hayabusa said:
Death Threat Regret
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
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So his company goes through all that trouble to get their game onto steam and this guy rather than going through the official channels to set things straight or using twitter to explain the mistakes that are being made to help put pressure on valve to solve things in a timely manner he goes and pisses away all his hard work by threatening to kill the head of the store he's fought to get his product on.
Sucks for us consumers and for anyone else who worked on the game but he forced valves hand. It would have set a very dangerous precedent for them to do business with a dev who pulls crap like that with them. And to anyone thinking they were too heavy handed what do you would happen if you did what he did to you your boss/coworker/business partner? I'll give you a hint- being out of a job might be the least of your worries. Oh, he didn't mean it? Well tough. That was not his dinner table or some stool at a bar where he hangs out with his friends after work. Most people Who work at some point or another say things like "one of these days,man..." in regards to someone they have to deal with at their jobs but there is a massive difference between venting in your home or when among a small group of friends and shouting in a public square for all to hear. People need to stop treating their public social media accounts that they use for professional purposes like it's a fucking confessional. If you wouldn't say it straight to someone's face for fear of the consequences of doing so DON"T FUCKING SAY IT ON A TWITTER ACCOUNT EVERYONE CAN SEE.
I really hate that internet culture has devolved in such a way that Fucking death threats are the norm. If this keeps up I don't doubt that internet users are going to wind up having a giant "this is why we can't have nice things" moment. Sure most people who send death threats on the internet don't carry them out but all it takes is a few psychos going through with it to fuck things up for all of us.
Sucks for us consumers and for anyone else who worked on the game but he forced valves hand. It would have set a very dangerous precedent for them to do business with a dev who pulls crap like that with them. And to anyone thinking they were too heavy handed what do you would happen if you did what he did to you your boss/coworker/business partner? I'll give you a hint- being out of a job might be the least of your worries. Oh, he didn't mean it? Well tough. That was not his dinner table or some stool at a bar where he hangs out with his friends after work. Most people Who work at some point or another say things like "one of these days,man..." in regards to someone they have to deal with at their jobs but there is a massive difference between venting in your home or when among a small group of friends and shouting in a public square for all to hear. People need to stop treating their public social media accounts that they use for professional purposes like it's a fucking confessional. If you wouldn't say it straight to someone's face for fear of the consequences of doing so DON"T FUCKING SAY IT ON A TWITTER ACCOUNT EVERYONE CAN SEE.
I really hate that internet culture has devolved in such a way that Fucking death threats are the norm. If this keeps up I don't doubt that internet users are going to wind up having a giant "this is why we can't have nice things" moment. Sure most people who send death threats on the internet don't carry them out but all it takes is a few psychos going through with it to fuck things up for all of us.
It's obviously their right to take the game down, but it was not morally right to do so. One member of a studio posts a tweet, a death threat to be sure, but one on the internet, twitter no less, with dubious credibility. It's obvious that Valve's shit treatment of indie studios just got to the guy, who was at his wit's end after having to deal with that and said something stupid on the internet, stupider than most 'stupid things said on the internet', granted. So naturally it's fair that his entire studio loses 90+ percent of the profits to years of their work, right? Bullshit, Steam is a bloated mess that too many people cede power to. I hope they can publish their game (which is good, let's remember) on a console online marketplace that doesn't pull half the bullshit steam does.Rainbow_Dashtruction said:
AND STEAM IS STILL SHIT REGARDLESS OF THIS MESS, have you watched Jimquisition, listened to PC youtubers, or just plain logged into Steam in the last year? It's the fucking McDonalds of video games! Stop protecting the rich and powerful, they have the money to do that themselves (and I'm not talking about literal, physical protection, no one should be harmed, obviously).
Hence fuck Valve, Gabe Newell, and everyone who defends their actions because they're a slave to steam / HALF LIFE 3 OMG.
Sure I do, doesn't change the fact that the basic line there was a person acting completely against what was expected of him. I.e shooting a person in cold blood, even though he was supposed to be the last possible person to do that as a policeman.Haru17 said:
I'm not trying to diminish, or in any way make Ferguson sound trivial, but I still think people in positions of power, be it monetary or authoritative power, should act as they should by society's standards.
Or simply just don't deal with Steam. Whilst it started out as a fairly benevolent, perhaps encouraging, platform it has devolved into a scenario we have decided not to do business with. It seems to be the de-rigeur statement that indie studios live or fall by Steam sales but it just isn't true. One of the Jimquisition videos will point you towards what is really happening there in terms of quality control if you don't already have a handle on it.
If you have a good product, a good game, a good fanbase, you don't need Newell. If, though, you decide that you want to go into business with them, it seems fairly obvious to me, every commentator above, every person ever in business and my pet iguana that you don't issue teenage-esque death threats to the person controlling the platform.
My concern is that with this seemingly self-perpetuating round of social media professional indie suicides, the revenue streams we rely on that aren't Kickstarter et.al might dry up. We're 40% owned by someone we convinced to have faith in us and their return has been pretty good; it's not an issue for us. What I don't want to see is high profile cases like this making potential (angel) investors think twice about other companies or startups.. because if they're thinking twice you've lost them.
This guy, Phil Fish et.al - make us look like arses as a whole for the money people. It shouldn't be the case but it is easy for a whole investment segment to be tainted with the 'don't go there in case it happens again' brush.
I try not to swear as a rule but, Mike, you're a twat.
If you have a good product, a good game, a good fanbase, you don't need Newell. If, though, you decide that you want to go into business with them, it seems fairly obvious to me, every commentator above, every person ever in business and my pet iguana that you don't issue teenage-esque death threats to the person controlling the platform.
My concern is that with this seemingly self-perpetuating round of social media professional indie suicides, the revenue streams we rely on that aren't Kickstarter et.al might dry up. We're 40% owned by someone we convinced to have faith in us and their return has been pretty good; it's not an issue for us. What I don't want to see is high profile cases like this making potential (angel) investors think twice about other companies or startups.. because if they're thinking twice you've lost them.
This guy, Phil Fish et.al - make us look like arses as a whole for the money people. It shouldn't be the case but it is easy for a whole investment segment to be tainted with the 'don't go there in case it happens again' brush.
I try not to swear as a rule but, Mike, you're a twat.
You're confusing capability for moral high ground. Stop protecting the rich and powerful, it's disgusting. It's like watching people crush insects for the fun of it.Rainbow_Dashtruction said:
There are no precedents set here, how would a death threat precedent ever form? It's moronic to think that could ever come to pass. Stop with the slippery slope bullshit, there are no positive feedback loops here.
This discussion has descended into unknowable levels of stupidity for which there are no words.Rainbow_Dashtruction said:
You don't understand my views on companies. Most companies are only concerned with profit, though I appreciate when companies act morally or pro-consumer / community, like Costco, Nintendo, etc have done in the past. To exempt companies from criticism, however, is folly. Like how Nintendo got lambasted for having an idiot PR rep insult gay people.
Companies aren't going to close and go cry in a corner just because someone said something mean on the internet. They'll keep raking it in regardless of what people think of them.
You're right with your first sentence, although I think you might be mistaken on who is the offending party in this case.Haru17 said:
Yes, it's true that Valve doesn't run into danger of encountering further serious disadvantages by ignoring Maulbeck's comments, that doesn't change the fact that he's been an asshole to a member of the company in a public space. It's certainly true that this specific member of the company has probably less reasons to be unhappy than other people, that still doesn't mean that he is morally obligated to continue to do business with people who are assholes to him.
Let's get hypothetical: Say, you walk into a Mac Donald's, order a burger, have to wait half an hour and the waiter is kind of unfriendly to you, so you decide the best way to deal with this is to threaten the staff. You'll probably get thrown out, regardless of whether or not you are actually carrying any weapons. Now, as far as evil corporations go, Mac Donalds is pretty bad. Far worse than Valve, I'd wager. It's consistently shitty to its employees, is atrociously unhealthy for its customers and has in the past employed outright criminal business methods. I am aware of that and if you would issue a complaint about any of those factors, I'd be one of the first people to support you. However, that doesn't diminish the manager's moral right not to do any business with people who are assholes to them. And so in this specific case, you'll be hard-pressed to get any sympathy from me.
and the award for the dumbest idiot in the world goes to...
seriously, who the fuck thinks threatening to kill your employer/business partner is a good idea?
if anything i feel bad for the other guy who worked with that jerk, his career might have been ruined by that asshole
seriously, who the fuck thinks threatening to kill your employer/business partner is a good idea?
if anything i feel bad for the other guy who worked with that jerk, his career might have been ruined by that asshole
DoTA 2 and League of Legends both. I'm not sure about DoTA 2 but I know that Riot has been trying method after method of trying to police their community. I'm not sure how effective its been but it seems that at least twice a year, maybe more, there is some role out or announcement of a system to try and deal with the toxicity. Sadly the only surefire way to do it is for the actual good eggs to do something about it. Hence any time someone uses inappropriate language now towards me, especially without a prompt, I just report them. Team or enemy.sageoftruth said:
That may seem a bit too touchy but me and my group are fed up with it that its that easy to get reported by us. The days when people used to act like actual people need to come back.
Valve is taking revenge, that's all it is. It is actively doing bad by imposing poverty on everyone else at Code Avarice by taking away their primary source of income.Rainbow_Dashtruction said:
What the hell does Phil Fish have to do with this? Stop bringing in unrelated people you dislike.
And again, I dislike certain companies that have given me reasons to distrust them.
People vent, and as time goes on that venting has gone online, to social media. I do think that there needs to be some protections put into place here to prevent overreaction to what people say online. I mean sure, it's easy to say "you shouldn't be dumb enough to talk crap online given that everything you say will leave behind a permanent record and can be seen by anyone" when it's someone else, but then when it's you, you tend to get it.
That said, what Valve did was appropriate, but I am hoping Gabe does relent and forgives the transgression at some point as I've said before.
In a more general sense, I think the proliferation of death threats is simply because of how broken society is. Most people would prefer to deal with problems constructively through legal or social processes. Sadly as time goes on this has become increasingly less possible as your more or less powerless against private communications platforms, businesses, or government officials and the like. If there is any process that even applies for someone to get justice it can take months and tons of money to use in many cases. As a result you see increasing numbers of threats. Most people however are not especially violent, so the threat is minimal, before you even get into the lack of ability to carry out the threats. That said, I'm of the opinion that things will get increasingly worse through a lot of levels of society if things continue down this path and people might gradually become more violent if left powerless for the long term, especially as you see increasing amounts of people at the top of things feeling entitled to their ability to wield power over others and make decisions about them without any real lack of accountability. This goes well beyond the context of this discussion though which was just someone being POed over a bureaucracy messing things up, as bureaucracies tend to do.
At any rate on the initial point I think people need to be better protected when it comes to context, something the system does not currently do a good job of considering.
That said, what Valve did was appropriate, but I am hoping Gabe does relent and forgives the transgression at some point as I've said before.
In a more general sense, I think the proliferation of death threats is simply because of how broken society is. Most people would prefer to deal with problems constructively through legal or social processes. Sadly as time goes on this has become increasingly less possible as your more or less powerless against private communications platforms, businesses, or government officials and the like. If there is any process that even applies for someone to get justice it can take months and tons of money to use in many cases. As a result you see increasing numbers of threats. Most people however are not especially violent, so the threat is minimal, before you even get into the lack of ability to carry out the threats. That said, I'm of the opinion that things will get increasingly worse through a lot of levels of society if things continue down this path and people might gradually become more violent if left powerless for the long term, especially as you see increasing amounts of people at the top of things feeling entitled to their ability to wield power over others and make decisions about them without any real lack of accountability. This goes well beyond the context of this discussion though which was just someone being POed over a bureaucracy messing things up, as bureaucracies tend to do.
At any rate on the initial point I think people need to be better protected when it comes to context, something the system does not currently do a good job of considering.
I do not think I would agree that Mike's tweet was obviously not serious. Out of context, the tweet on its own is just a straight up death threat.
In context of the tweets immediately surrounding that one, Mike was clearly impassioned and angry about a topic directly relating to his livelihood. So the seriousness level of his statements (in a public forum) seems pretty high. He may have had no intention of carrying through his threat but he certainly made it in anger.
In the wider context of Mike's general behaviour, it's hard to tell in hindsight due to this event colouring perceptions but the web is filled with Mike Maulbeck's angry and out of proportion responses to minor criticisms. It is entirely believable someone like that might snap.
I have some sympathy for Mike as a brief and stupid comment has apparently closed a major avenue of his life and I know that we all make mistakes.
But I don't know Mike personally so all I have to go on to assess the threat is the surrounding information: how he has acted in public previously and the fact of the threat itself. At the very best it was grossly unprofessional. Although valve was in business with Mike's company, I doubt they would have interacted much if at all on a personal level. It seems entirely possible that Gabe Newell may have never met the guy. So they can only look at those same things, as well as their own correspondence with him during the incident that initially incited his rage. I think Valve made the right choice, I wouldn't want to work with someone like that and there is no reason they should have to and even if it blew over this time I would have serious concerns about his future behaviour and particularly any response he might have if something even worse were to ever happen.
In context of the tweets immediately surrounding that one, Mike was clearly impassioned and angry about a topic directly relating to his livelihood. So the seriousness level of his statements (in a public forum) seems pretty high. He may have had no intention of carrying through his threat but he certainly made it in anger.
In the wider context of Mike's general behaviour, it's hard to tell in hindsight due to this event colouring perceptions but the web is filled with Mike Maulbeck's angry and out of proportion responses to minor criticisms. It is entirely believable someone like that might snap.
I have some sympathy for Mike as a brief and stupid comment has apparently closed a major avenue of his life and I know that we all make mistakes.
But I don't know Mike personally so all I have to go on to assess the threat is the surrounding information: how he has acted in public previously and the fact of the threat itself. At the very best it was grossly unprofessional. Although valve was in business with Mike's company, I doubt they would have interacted much if at all on a personal level. It seems entirely possible that Gabe Newell may have never met the guy. So they can only look at those same things, as well as their own correspondence with him during the incident that initially incited his rage. I think Valve made the right choice, I wouldn't want to work with someone like that and there is no reason they should have to and even if it blew over this time I would have serious concerns about his future behaviour and particularly any response he might have if something even worse were to ever happen.