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A couple weeks ago, notorious developer of crappy Steam games Digital Homicide made waves by suing 100 anonymous Steam users, who they deemed a “hate and harassment group,” for $18 million. Now, however, the suit’s been dismissed.




In a motion to dismiss filed last week, Digital Homicide said that their business had been “destroyed,” rendering them unable to continue pursuing the suit. On Friday, it was approved.

Speaking with TechRaptor, Digital Homicide’s James Romine explained that Valve’s decision to remove all of the studio’s games from Steam is what did them in:

“The case dismissal was only due to financial reasons caused by the removal of our games. I believe the case was very solid. There were in excess of 140 false statements by the 11 Steam users, tens of thousands of posts harassing myself and my customers, three direct interference with written contracts with third parties by Steam users (some of which were competitors), and much more. A combined in excess of 25 reports were filed against the worst users of the 11 with no resolutions being found.”


This is, however, Romine talking, so I see your grain of salt and raise you a whole quarry’s worth of boulders.

You’ll remember that Digital Homicide also sued game critic Jim Sterling for $10 million. Romine said that case “waits for dismissal decision.” So it’s not fully off the table. At least, not yet.

Regardless, it sounds like Digital Homicide is out of the games business. “As far as Digital Homicide? It’s destroyed,” said Romine. “It’s been stomped into the ground from a thousand directions and use is discontinued. I’m going back into the work force and watching what’s really going on.”

It’s hard to feel bad for Digital Homicide, given that they often lashed out at Steam users and flooded the platform with shoddy games, likely as a means of abusing the trading card system to rake in money. They’ve now taken to claiming they were leading a pro-consumer charge for “for lower prices and a more open market,” which is some pretty ludicrous historical revisionism. However, as I recently discussed at length, there is a kernel of truth to their unhinged ramblings. Steam’s evolved into a place that subtly pits users and developers against each other in a relationship that’s turned toxic. Mob tactics that verge on harassment are systemically encouraged, and things only get worse with each day that Valve continues to turn a blind eye.


Make no mistake, though: while Digital Homicide probably didn’t deserve as much shit as they got, they were a toilet explosion. It seems only right that in their final moments, their work should get to speak for them. Take it away, guy:


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