7. Head Of Steam Gets Issued Death Threat... By Developer
Say what you like about the accessibility of Valve's Steam service in terms of how easy it is to get anything on there these days, but we'd imagine if you did to get your creative vision for a title up to potentially sell a few million copies, you'd be jumping for joy. Not the case for Paranautical Activity developer Mike Maulbeck, who in a fit of rage at seeing his game wrongly labelled as 'Early Access' on launch day, tweeted out a series of defamatory statements, ending by firing one right at the boss himself Gabe Newell, which he then retracted. It was all too late though, as once something's out on the internet there's no going back. Valve got in touch with Maulbeck and terminated his account, pulling the game from the service altogether. Not only that, but Maulbeck ended up having to resign, giving up his share in the company as well as being a figurehead or having any creative input. He fully apologised in a lengthy blog post where he admitted his misconduct, and it's been reported he's tried to at least get the game back on the Steam page for the sake of his colleagues that must have spent endless hours coding the whole thing - but as of yet, no sale.
