Death threats on the Internet are a thoroughly condemned thing. Simply: Don’t do them, they lead to no good and they’re generally seen as a terrible way to act.

So when Mike Maulbeck of Code Avarice saw that his company’s game of Paranautical Activity was mislabelled on Steam as Early Access you’d think he would be angry. So angry that he actually tweeted out a stream of ranting that ended with a death threat being made against Gabe Newell himself. Steam’s response? They’ve basically ‘unreleased’ Paranautical Activity from Steam.

There had previously been some tension between Steam and the developers over a publishing deal with Adult Swim that Steam was afraid might cause a loophole in the Greenlight system some time last year. While they got past it, it seems that the bad blood hadn’t quite been forgotten and now it’s cost Code Avarice dearly.

As a response Maulbeck has since stepped down from the company, leaving a final blog post message to announce this and reassure the world that he “won’t receive any money from the sale of Paranautical Activity or any future games CA develops, I won’t be consulted on business decisions, and I won’t have any hand in development” in an attempt to make sure that the entire company won’t suffer from his actions.

” I feel is it my responsibility to step down from Code Avarice completely so that Steam has no reason to harbor any more ill will towards the company, and maybe even if we can’t see Paranautical Activity restored, at least future Code Avarice games may be allowed onto the platform.”

Seems like a wise move on his part, and it’s a shame that this happened. While not a great game, Paranautical did have some promise as a decent game. In the end this probably stands as a wonderful example of why being aware of what you say on the Internet is a very good habit to get yourself into.

Code Avarice Blog – “Mike is leaving Code Avarice”: [x]