'Paranautical Activity' Relisted On Steam After Developer Quits For Threatening Gabe Newell

A portrait of the Twitter logo in Ventura, California December 21, 2013. Reuters/Eric Thayer

This is a proverbial cautionary tale of biting the hand that feeds you. The roguelike FPS "Paranautical Activity" had been taken off steam after the developer Mike Maulbeck had threatened to murder Valve boss Gabe Newell over a Steam marketing oversight. It turns out Newell has been magnanimous enough to allow the game to be relisted on his dominant PC digital distribution platform.

In a bizarre turn of events, Code Avarice developer Maulbeck had lost his cool on Twitter following his game being listed in the wrong section by Steam. The complete retail release of "Paranautical Activity" was wrongly featured as a Steam Early Access title. Early Access titles are Steam's way of letting gamers sample unfinished games that are being developed and modified according to active feedback from users.

Maulbeck had used expletives to deride Steam for the listing error through his tweet, which was followed by a death threat directed at Newell. The tweet simply announced that Maulbeck was going to "murder" Newell and that "he is going to die." The offending tweet was soon deleted, but not before Player Attack managed to snap a screenshot and make it public.

"I'm sorry that my statements made Valve and/or Gabe uncomfortable and upset (rightfully so)," wrote Maulbeck through an apology on the official website, which has since been removed. Maulbeck subsequently resigned from Code Avarice but rejoined weeks later, according to Kotaku. However, the game wasn't relisted on Steam until Maulbeck finally quit the company for real and the licence itself was sold to another company called Digerati Distribution.

When Eurogamer quizzed the new owner if it had faced any resistance from Steam to relist the game, Digerati Distribution replied the deal went through smoothly and took only four weeks from start to end. As it turns out, the original developer Code Avarice won't be earning any royalties off the game, as the rights have been sold off over a one-time payment of an unspecified amount.

The relisted version of the game has been dubbed as "Deluxe Atonement Edition." "Paranautical Activity" is currently available at a 30-percent discount on Steam for a sticker price of $7.

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