We recently reported on the indie game Paranautical Activity being pulled from Steam after one of its developers threatened to kill Valve CEO Gabe Newell over Twitter. Since then, the person behind the threats, Mike Maulbeck – co-owner of Code Avarice – has stepped down from the company, selling his half of the business to another employee.
Earlier in the week, the developer unleashed a torrent of angry outbursts on his Twitter profile after Valve released Paranautical Activity as an Early Access game rather than a full release, which Maulbeck said it should have been. After tweeting that he was, “going to kill Gabe Newell,” Valve immediately terminated their professional relationship.
Now, Maulbeck has accepted full responsibility for his actions, admitting that he felt angry at the confusion caused by the way the game was marketed. In an official statement on the developer’s website, Maulbeck had this to say about his resignation:
I’m really, deeply sorry that my short sighted, hot-tempered actions resulted in not only my own dreams and aspirations being destroyed, but those of the entire team I worked with. I’m sorry that my statements made Valve and/or Gabe uncomfortable and upset (rightfully so).
My temper and tendency to use twitter to vent has been a consistent problem since I entered the games industry, and I just can’t do it. I don’t have the willpower necessary to be the “face” of a company. If I do continue to work in games it’ll be as an anonymous 1 of 1000 at some shitty corporation, not the most public figure of a single digit sized team.
I’ve sold my half of Code Avarice to Travis. Given up all my rights to CA as a company, and all it’s intellectual properties. I 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.
Gamers who still wish to purchase Paranautical Activity can do so from the official company website or Desura.