Here’s an easy way to get all your games removed from Steam: sue 100 users.
Indie developer Digital Homicide did just that, prompting Valve to remove all its games from the largest PC gaming platform on the internet.
According to court documents filed in Arizona and uploaded to Google Drive by YouTuber SidAlpha, Digital Homicide doesn’t take criticism lightly. The filings indicate that James Romine, one-half of the Romine Brothers, who are Digital Homicide’s development team, sued 100 Steam users, alleging personal injury claims arising from online comments posted by the defendants.
The documents show screengrabs of Steam commenters asserting that Digital Homicide routinely tried to game Steam’s system by submitting a massive volume of games to Steam Greenlight for cheap, hoping to get quick sales from leftover change in user’s wallets. Accusations in the comments also assert that Digital Homicide would reskin a game and re-release it as brand new.
In a statement released to Tech Raptor, Valve’s Doug Lombardi said “Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.”
Interestingly, the court case is entitled “Romine vs Unknown Party.” This is because the Romines don’t know the names of the Steam users, so instead have chosen to list their usernames. They have also subpoenaed Valve to release relevant information on all 100 users in this lawsuit.
Steam Greenlight did remove Digital Homicide’s submissions once in the past — after the developer published eleven games on the same day.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the Romine Brothers’ first lawsuit. They famously sued popular video game YouTuber Jim Sterling earlier this year for $10 million in damages. The Romines in that case argued that whenever Sterling would criticize one of their games, his fans would go to Steam and add a barrage of negative comments.
It seems that Valve has decided to err on the side of its users. And considering how Valve has had to deal with Digital Homicide in the past, it would be safe to assume that this time, the Romines will be fighting an uphill battle.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.