Update: Valve has responded to our question, confirming that it did delist the games. This was what Doug Lombardi of Valve had to say:
Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.
Original story below:
We reported earlier today that Digital Homicide is suing 100 Steam users for $18 million. In addition, the studio filed a subpoena against Valve for information about the users in order to be able to pursue the matter. At the time of that report, Valve had taken no action on the matter, but it appears that reprieve has ended.
First spotted by Twitter user lashman, it appears that all of Digital Homicide's games have been removed from Steam, and it is no longer listed as a developer on the storefront.
Users who previously purchased or acquired the games via other methods on Steam are unaffected by this. The games still appear in your library, just like with previously delisted titles. It is possible that the deletion here is related not to the lawsuit, but instead to Valve's crackdown on reviews and Greenlight votes for keys.
While Digital Homicide has not been proven to be involved in that controversy, it has participated in giveaways in groups which asked you to go to the Greenlight page to get your code.
However, given the timing, that appears unlikely, especially when you consider that previous games that have had that issue have just had the purchase button removed instead of becoming entirely delisted. A prime example of that is most of the output of Rai Studio Games, including Base Squad 49.
Additionally, it appears that Steam keys that have already been given to Digital Homicide, and which are being distributed through different storefronts, will still function. We tested this with a code from the Itch.io page and it was redeemed without issues.
Another impact of this is that the Greenlight queue has gotten lighter. All of Digital Homicide's games that were on the Steam Greenlight program have been removed. The group Digital Homicide Game Central, which is run by Digital Homicide as a central hub for its games, is still functional.
In other Digital Homicide news, YouTube personality and critic James Stephanie Sterling shared on Twitter that the amount Digital Homicide was suing her for had risen to $10 million to $15 million.
We have reached out to Valve for comment on this matter, and to confirm why the games were removed. We will update this when we find out more about the situation.
What do you think about this situation? Do you think Digital Homicide deserved this? What do you think will be the end result of this? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
(Editor's note: this article has been updated to reflect James Stephanie Sterling's preferred pronouns.)
