Paranautical Activity resurfaces on Steam after its dev threatened Gabe Newell
New publisher releases it as "Deluxe Atonement Edition".
FPS roguelike Paranautical Activity is back on Steam, despite one of its developers threatening Gabe Newell's life over a marketing snafu back in October.
The developer in question, Mike Maulbeck, has since apologised for the Twitter outburst that caused Valve to remove the game from sale.
"I'm sorry that my statements made Valve and/or Gabe uncomfortable and upset (rightfully so)," he said when he publicly announced his resignation from the studio in hopes that his colleagues at Code Avarice wouldn't be punished for his mistakes.
Yet the game remained off Steam and after a few weeks Maulbeck rejoined Code Avarice, this time hoping to keep himself in check on social media.
Now Paranautical Activity has resurfaced on Steam seemingly out of nowhere. Wait, what?
You see, Paranautical Activity is no longer owned by Code Avarice. It's been purchased by publisher Digerati Distribution who has re-released the game with the subheading: Deluxe Atonement Edition.
Code Avarice noted on Twitter that "Paranautical is not owned by Code Avarice anymore" and one should contact Digerati for any questions.
When asked whether Code Avarice would still be making money off royalties, Digerati's Nick Alfieri told us that it "paid an upfront fee for the rights" and Valve agreed to the new deals' terms. Alfieri added that he "couldn't discuss any further due to NDAs (which are standard in publishing and IP transfer agreements)."
Asked if there any resistance on Valve's side about getting the game back on Steam, he said, "No, not at all. It involved a number of discussions but they were really responsive and I believe the whole process from IP transfer to learning it would be reonboarded was around four weeks."
