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Digital Homicide Studios has dropped its $18 million lawsuit against 100 Steam customers for negative reviews, claiming it doesn’t have enough cash to see the battle through.
The developer last month announced it’s plan to sue 100 Steam users for leaving negative reviews on the company’s games, to the tune of $18 million pounds. Valve responded by pulling these games from the Steam storefront, using a gift of understatement to claim the developers action was "hostile to Steam customers".
Now the company has filed a motion to get their case dismissed without prejudice, which would mean Digital Homicide can recoup its court fees. If this isn’t possible the company have requested a 90-day extension "in continuing matters", during which they’ll try to raise the cash to continue with their original lawsuit. If the request to dismiss without prejudice is granted, Digital Homicide would be free to bring the case to court again, without running afoul of double jeopardy — a rule in the american justice system from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction.
In a statement to TechRaptor, Digital Homicide’s James Romine has claimed: "We may have been painted in a negative customer light by gaming media, truthfully we’ve been fighting for lower prices and a more open market – which to me is the most important thing for consumers."
He also claimed that the lawsuit was only dismissed due to financial issues caused by Valve’s removal of their games.
"I believe the case was very solid. There were in excess of 140 false statements by the 11 Steam users, tens of thousands of posts harassing myself and my customers, three direct interference with written contracts with third parties by Steam users (some of which were competitors), and much more. A combined in excess of 25 reports were filed against the worst users of the 11 with no resolutions being found."
The deveoper’s separate lawsuit against games critic Jim Sterling is unaffected by these events.
