Bickering Spintires dev accused of deliberately sabotaging game for players

An aggrieved developer appears to have deliberately bugged existing and paid for copies of PC title Spintires after a falling out with its co-maker.

Troubles at developer Oovee are nothing new, although development of the game has continued on and off. Just last month the game’s Russian creator Pavel Zagrebelnyj discussed future development of the game with Eurogamer – albeit against a backdrop of financial disagreement.

However, Rock Paper Shotgun reports that it appears Pavel, who presumably believes he is yet to be paid his dues, is accused of having deliberately inserting malicious code into the simulation that causes frequent crashes. It seems that these crashes were designed to trigger at a future date – which we have now arrived at.

There is a fix available to counteract the ‘timebombs’, but how many of its 750,000 Steam owners are aware of it is another matter entirely.

For a paying audience to be punished in such a way is utterly unimaginable and without doubt unforgivable, regardless of the legitimacy of the developer’s grievance. Even if things settle behind the scenes it will be hard to imagine the community will continue to back the former Steam chart topper.