Digital Homicide is a name that should be well known to PC users that use Steam. The studio is known best for, and I need to be careful here lest I get sued, less than stellar games on the platform. Many people out there would even go as far as to say that they are pure crap.
The saga of Digital Homicide really began back when they released a game known as ‘The Slaughtering Grounds’ which was pieced together from pre-purchased assets and “allegedly” stolen content from Google image search. This is where games critic Jim Sterling comes into the picture.
NOT IN MY CRAPPER // DIGITAL HOMICIDE
Sterling would feature the game in his YouTube series where he utterly ripped the game apart in his “First Impressions” video. He would go on to cover other Digital Homicide games, all of which failed to show much improvement. And here is where Digital Homicide decided to strike –Literally. They issued a copyright strike against Sterling and began talks of taking him to court.
Fast forward and Digital Homicide is now in litigation against Sterling, quite possibly the first of its kind on YouTube. But just when things started to quiet down the studio has now filled an $18 million suit against 100 Steam users for negative reviews and comments made against them. But the internet would not sit idly by and Valve took notice of their shenanigans.
In response Valve has delisted all the games from the studio from Steam and issued a response regarding the matter which read:
“Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers”.
ASSAULT ON ORION 7 // DIGITAL HOMICIDE
But this simply seemed to enrage Digital Homicide as they are now actively seeking representation (how many firms and lawyers have they retained?) against Valve. The studio even made their own statement regarding Valve’s statement which read (spelling and grammar mistakes and all):
First i’d like to briefly respond to Doug Lombardi’s official statement about Digital Homicide and its owners. I’d like to give some context to his offficial statement “Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.” 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, it just shows a reckless disregard for for the well being of their community for profits.
Who knows what’s next for the studio, but it’s really hard to see how things improve from this point out.
J. Luis is the current Editor-In-Chief here at GAMbIT. With a background in investigative journalism his work encompasses the pop-culture spectrum here, but he also works in the political spectrum for other organizations.
J. Luis is the current Editor-In-Chief here at GAMbIT. With a background in investigative journalism his work encompasses the pop-culture spectrum here, but he also works in the political spectrum for other organizations.
