Steam Game Pulled After Developer Tweeted Death Threats To Valve's Gabe Newell

Indie game “Paranautical Activity” was removed from Steam late Monday night after its creator, Providence, Rhode Island-based Mike Maulbeck, tweeted a death threat to Gabe Newell, 51, co-founder and managing director of Valve Corporation, which developed software distribution platform Steam.

Maulbeck’s game was highlighted in the Steam store as a featured Halloween title, but was listed as an Early Access game. However, “Paranautical Activity” was recently completed and should no longer have been categorized under Early Access. Maulbeck said he felt this would confuse buyers and hurt sales.

"This being a project I spent years of my life on, I was very frustrated by this mistake [Valve] made, so I tweeted a series of tweets calling them incompetent that eventually ended in me saying, 'I swear I'm gonna fucking kill gabe' or something," Maulbeck told Polygon on Monday night. "A statement I obviously didn't mean, but nonetheless was totally unacceptable and driven entirely by the heat of frustration I was feeling at the time."

Maulbeck’s threatening tweet directed toward Newell was what got his game pulled from the Steam store. Though he later deleted it, the post read, “I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die.”

Maulbeck says Steam contacted him to say it was terminating his account and would no longer work with the developer on future titles. Maulbeck attempted to come to an agreement with the Kirkland, Washington-based company, but says Valve won’t listen.

"I have since obviously replied to them saying that I didn't mean what I said and pleaded that they consider the monopoly they have on the PC market before totally writing us off," Maulbeck said to Polygon. "But let's be real. If they took the game off the store, they're f----n sure about their decision. There's probably nothing to be done."