Digital Homicide Sues 100 Steam Users So Valve Bans All Of The Indie Dev’s Games

An indie game developer is facing repercussions from Valve after it decided to file a lawsuit against a band of anonymous Steam users. The suit alleges a number of offenses, including cyberbullying, stalking, forming a hate group to harass and disrupt the company's business and products, and so forth. In response to the lawsuit, Valve removed all of the developer's games from Steam.

Digital Homicide and its co-founder James Romine are seeking $18 million from 100 anonymous Steam users known only by their online nicknames. In the suit, the developer asks the court to subpoena Valve to fork over the real life identities of the 100 individuals, most of which are part of a group that was initially called Poop Games and is now known as Digital Homicides.

Krog Wars
Krog Wars

The indie developer hasn't had much luck with its titles on Steam. Games such as Krog Wars and Dungeons of Kragmor received mostly negative reviews from users, a lot of them scathing. The aforementioned group took things a step further by calling out Digital Homicide for spamming Stream Greenlight with games they feel are poorly designed and have no business being there.

Digital Homicide refers to the group as a "hate and harassment" group that was formed to "financially destroy and harass" the developer and other targeted developers. The lawsuit is rather long and includes several specific posts made by members of the Steam group, and puts a particularly emphasis on posts made by 10 individuals.

Once Valve caught wind of the lawsuit, it removed all of the indie developer's games from its digital distribution platform, telling Kotaku it "stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers."

Dungeons of Kragmor
Dungeons of Kragmor

Digital Homicide disputes that notion. In a statement posted to its website, the indie developer claims that "what has actually transpired was a lack of resolution from Steam in regards to moderation of their platform which might sound like a tough job to do, but coming from a company that brags its profitability per employee is higher than google [sic], it just shows a reckless disregard for for [sic] the well being of their community for profits."

The developer also notes in big, bold letters at the top of its website that it's "seeking legal representation." Anyone interested in providing legal counsel can contact the company at support@digitalhomicide.ninja.