Kaila White

The Republic | azcentral.com

After asking for help and being turned away by the FBI and the Yuma County Sheriff's Office, a video-game developer in Yuma has sued in federal court over what he calls relentless online harassment that has lasted more than 1 1/2 years.

Brothers James and Robert Romine founded Digital Homicide Studios LCC in Arizona in 2014 and have since created more than 60 small PC games.

Their largest distributor was Steam, a wildly popular online platform owned by Valve Corporation that lets users digitally buy and play video games.

The Romines contend that criticism of their work, which started with a video from a popular YouTube personality, has escalated beyond appropriate critique into harassment.

James Romine, 46, filed court documents last week seeking to sue at least 11 but up to 100 anonymous Steam users for almost $18 million for harassment, stalking, criminal damage and criminal impersonation.

After news of his court filing broke, Valve removed all Digital Homicide games from Steam, effectively destroying the Romines' business.

"What I made on one game in one day on Steam is more than we made in six months on over 10 games on Amazon," Robert Romine, 36, said Tuesday. "I could have quit doing any work and would have had income for five to 10 years because those products would sell on their own.

"It’s a massive amount of damage. The amount of money that was lost because of this is probably more than I’m ever going to make again."

An Arizona Republic request seeking comment from the Valve vice president for marketing received no immediate response.

From a YouTube video to death threats

Many have criticized Digital Homicide’s games for being hastily made and sold for as little as 94 cents, calling them an example of “asset flipping,” a term coined by Jim Sterling to describe when game developers buy pre-made game assets and put them together opposed to developing full environments and characters themselves.

While not illegal, many gamers frown upon the practice as lacking artistry.

Big problems began in November 2014 when popular YouTube personality Jim Sterling posted a video of himself playing and criticizing a Digital Homicide game, and the Romines posted a video in response criticizing Sterling. They called him an (expletive) "idiot" and "moron" who will “flap (his) stupid mouth” to create a “useless” review.

Responses and videos flew back and forth, and Sterling's hundreds of thousands of fans began attacking the Romines and Digital Homicide.

The Romines then issued a demand for Sterling to take down his original critique video under copyright infringement, a move that many viewed as unacceptable censorship.

The criticism and harassment grew, and James Romine eventually filed his first lawsuit, against Sterling (real name: James Stanton), in March for libel and lost-product damages.

Since then, the 11 users cited by username in James' second lawsuit have posted a combined 20,000 times across Steam, Reddit, YouTube and other platforms, according to documents he filed Sept. 12 in U.S. District Court for Arizona.

According to court documents,users have impersonated them, accused them of theft, threatened to beat them if they see them in person at a gaming convention, posted derogatory comments about Robert’s wife and said he was incompetent to be a parent, wished death upon them and said they should kill themselves. They also have harassed customers after they post a positive review.

"If you just thought up a random awful thing to say, it’s probably been said," Robert said. "I guarantee you any reasonable person would be outraged if any of these comments were said to somebody’s face."

It's spread into real-world contact: Earlier this year, the Romines said they received a package full of feces in the mail.

Recently, Robert said he received an email that stated, "You better lock your windows and sleep with one eye open.”

Sterling has tweeted referring to the lawsuits, writing on Saturday it’s “still wise for me to not comment on my own lawsuit yet, but it's important to point out how they ruined themselves."

He also wrote that “A good time to remind everybody that slurs and death threats sent to any dev for any reason is trash behavior & you're better than that.”

Sterling’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Free speech or criminal harassment?

Much of the media and online conversation about the case has framed it as an issue of commenters' free speech or customers' harsh reviews, which the Romines say is misguided.

"This has nothing to do with angry customers. These guys are not our customers at all. These are just people who have an interest in making sure we are destroyed," James said.

Instead, the Romines say it is about online harassment and lack of protection for small-business owners in Arizona and across the U.S.

"Am I going to be protected if my life is threatened online and I’m harassed for 18 months? Will the state of Arizona come to my defense and protect me and my business from the individuals attacking me? The answer is no, they will not," Robert said.

No help from law enforcement

In April, the Romines tried to distance themselves from Digital Homicide and sell games under their personal names, but they said Steam users harassed them again.

"Once that association was attached to us, we felt like we had no more options. We could no longer do business individually," Robert said.

Steam was not responding to the Romines' requests for help, so the brothers contacted the FBI. Investigators told them there was nothing they could do about the situation, the Romines said. They contacted the sheriff's office in June and said they were brushed off, so in August they went in person with a stack of papers showing hundreds of the worst comments.

"I gave them this example: 'If I go up the street to a local business and I harass them every day, will you arrest me?' He said yes. I said, 'OK, while we’re sitting here, I am being harassed online, on my business. Is there anything you can do to stop this from happening?' "

"The sheriff’s department would help us with nothing. We got told, ‘You should sue them,’ " Robert said. "His response left me flabbergasted. Are you kidding me? Really? OK, I guess our only means to end harassment that’s happening to us is to civilly pursue it then.

"And what happens when we civilly pursue? Not only do we lose income, but it’s worse than before."

The Yuma County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Next steps: Get the 11 users' real identities

James has worked for hundreds of hours since early 2015 to learn the legal system and represent himself in both cases in order to save money on legal fees. He has a GoFundMe where people can donate to support his work.

His case against Jim Sterling has been stalled in court since Sterling's camp filed a motion to dismiss it in May on grounds, in part, that the alleged statements are "protected commentary and opinion" and not libel.

If his subpoena request is granted in his second lawsuit, against the 11 to 100 users, he said he eventually would serve Valve in Washington with an order to release personal information about the 11 users as well as any other harassers who are business competitors.

Many media outlets have covered the Romines' situation since Valve Vice President of Marketing Doug Lombardi told Vice last week that "Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers."

Now the Romines are considering a third lawsuit, this time against Valve for removing them and publicly stating why. They are seeking a lawyer to represent Digital Homicide.

"I was a liquor salesman, which is competitive and commission-based. It is nowhere near the cutthroat, disgusting behavior I have seen since I went online," Robert said. "I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do from here on out because I really don’t ever want to get online again. It’s terrible.

"If I don’t know I’ll be protected in some way, I don’t want to start an online business again."