We recently covered the removal of nearly 200 titles from the Steam store for publishing fake games. For many, this may seem like a first strike from Valve, but toxic developers are nothing new to Steam or gaming, and while most gamers are worried about toxic communities, they should not discount how scary the environment is when gamers try to speak out against toxic developers who have far more power than an angry troll in a lobby.

In the past, communities have had little recourse against developers. Developers have money, platforms, and reputations in which to leverage their position and stance, but recent social media like Reddit and Youtube have given a voice to those that previously were unheard.

Take, for instance, Jim Sterling and TotalBiscuit, two youtubers that have done quite a lot of work and research to outline fraud developers. Both of these youtubers have done more than the collective efforts of all current video gaming journalism to bring down these fake developers for the benefit of the community. And both of these youtubers have been targeted endlessly by toxic developers, slander, and lawsuits.

If it ended with attacks on large youtubers that would be bad enough, but in the case of developer Digital Homicide, the next step was to sue Steam users and order DMCA take-downs of videos that criticized them. Thankfully, this developer lost their lawsuit and went under shortly after, but this is only because they attacked youtubers with hundreds of thousands of fans. Countless smaller youtubers have no recourse when a developer takes down their videos or threatens lawsuits, and it is simple enough for a developer on Steam to delete all comments critical of them and change how they are perceived. Some developers have even continued business for years on Steam after mocking and hurling slurs at the community that tried to criticize them.

While Steam is taking positive steps to cull out these developers, the toxic relationship of developers and community still lingers. Just days ago, a Riot staff member, Aaron Rutledge, casually insulted and discussed the death of the popular streamer Tyler1, saying, “honestly, its fine he’ll die from a coke overdose or testicular cancer from the steroids. Then we’ll be gucci.” When confronted with his words, and when the community rose up in anger, he seemed defensive about how or why the community would take issue with his words.

Since then, Riot has apparently let Rutledge go, which is as good a sign as any, but it is still concerning that such a senior member of a studio would feel he had the right to so casually attack the community while his company preached the ethics of goods sportsmanship. Perhaps if developers want to battle toxic communities they should start with their own staff and work their way down.