The studio produced roughly sixty games until September 2016, including The Slaughtering Grounds, Temper Tantrum, and Galactic Hitman.
[1] These included The Slaughtering Grounds, Gnarltoof's Revenge, Krog Wars, Paranormal Psychosis, Temper Tantrum, and Wyatt Derp.
The studio gave away copies of games like Ark: Survival Evolved and Rocket League in exchange for approval votes, which violated the Steam Greenlight guidelines.
[7] John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun reviewed the studio's Galactic Hitman in October 2015, calling it potentially the worst game on Steam at the time.
[5] Digital Homicide Studios defended its use of purchased assets in a second response video, citing that it was "necessary from a production standpoint" and part of the "cycle of cash flow" in the indie game scene.
Through two separate statements, the company said that the takedown was not censorship of Sterling's opinion, but rather enforced due to copyright infringement and damages the video had caused.
Patrick Klepek of Kotaku called the exchange "equal parts awkward and contentious" because the two parties approached it from opposing perspectives and because Romine eventually suggested that someone could sue Sterling over their actions.
[1] Additionally, the company launched a crowdfunding campaign to hire a "premium online defamation law firm" for the lawsuit.
[18] The court later dismissed the suit because Romine had filed it as an individual but claimed damages for the company, although he was given the option to amend and refile his complaint.
After being ignored by Steam and turned down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Romine brothers contacted the Sheriff's Office of Yuma County in June 2016.
[22] Claims included the purposeful posting of negative reviews about Digital Homicide Studios's games and requests that Sterling produces further videos covering the company.
[1] On September 16, in response to the lawsuit, Valve removed Digital Homicide Studios's entire catalog (composed of twenty-one games and fifteen pieces of downloadable content) and all of its Steam Greenlight items from the platform.
[1] In response, Romine accused Valve of failing to provide a "safe environment" for the studio and showing "a reckless disregard for the wellbeing of their community for profits".
[24][25] The Romines consequently considered filing a lawsuit against Valve for "removing [their games] and publicly stating why" and were seeking a lawyer to represent Digital Homicide Studios in such a case.
He filed for the lawsuit against the Steam users to be dismissed without prejudice, citing that he could no longer afford to pursue it, although he noted that his case was still "solid".
[5] In May 2017, Digital Spy ranked the lawsuit against Sterling fifth on its list of the "5 silliest legal scraps" in the video game industry.
He also believed that the company "allows and systemically endorses Steam users to behave in ways that are toxic, verging on abusive, with developers and each other", thus enabling parts of the substance of Romine's second lawsuit.