Content warning: This article includes references to sexual abuse.
The future of immersive boomer-shooter Fortune’s Run is uncertain after developer Dizzie said she had lost control of the project, claimed Steam was withholding funds, and indicated that development may be cancelled.
The game was previously placed on hold while Dizzie served a year in prison. She has since described further legal and personal difficulties, including another 25 days in prison after a recent rearrest. The dispute has also been followed by a wave of negative reviews, which Dizzie has attributed to Kiwi Farms, and the game appears to have been removed from sale on Steam.
For readers following independent game development and digital distribution disputes, the situation is a reminder that ownership, revenue and platform access can become complicated when a project involves multiple contributors. More gaming industry coverage is available in the RETROCADE Arcade Blog.
Dispute over ownership and Steam revenue
Dizzie’s main claim is that Valve is “refusing to let me take legal control of the project”. She says Steam is holding approximately $9,000 and will only pay it to the person Valve recognises as the game’s owner, whom she identifies as Kim.
In her latest update on Steam, Dizzie made a series of allegations against a former partner. She alleged that Kim abused her, took project money, used drugs, was unfaithful and withdrew thousands of dollars from accounts connected to the project, including Patreon and PayPal.
Dizzie also made further allegations involving abuse, fraud, death threats and sexual abuse. She acknowledged that some of her statements could be regarded as defamatory in court. These are allegations made by Dizzie, and their truth has not been independently established.
Dizzie says she is living in a halfway house while on parole and has been unable to apply for identification because she cannot leave for long enough to complete the paperwork. She also says she is being asked to pay tax on Steam income she did not receive. According to her account, police treated her attempt to report Kim as a civil matter, while she believes her parole officer used the situation as a reason to return her to prison.
Could Fortune’s Run continue elsewhere?
There may still be a route for the game to continue outside Steam. In Discord comments, Dizzie said she could potentially claim ownership and keep developing Fortune’s Run for GOG and Epic, although those platforms generated considerably less income.
Dizzie stated that the game had made roughly $200,000 on Steam compared with $5,000 on GOG over the same period. She appeared to be giving up on the project as a conventional commercial release, but said she still wanted to publish a substantial update through another platform.
A further post to Steam included a screenshot of a message from Steam Support. The support representative questioned how Dizzie was attempting to transfer the application from an account apparently controlled by Kim. The message stated that the person who signed the Steam Distribution Agreement for the relevant Steamworks partner group would need to initiate the transfer, and provided information about proving account ownership.
Dizzie then wrote that Valve was removing her access to the game and that she had reduced its price to $1 with the maximum discount. She ended the post by saying goodbye to players.
Valve is removing my access from the game. I’ve made it $1 and discounted it maximally.
Goodbye everyone.
Despite that apparent intention, Fortune’s Run doesn’t appear to be possible to buy at all at the time of writing.
Negative reviews add to the uncertainty
The game has also experienced a limited review-bombing campaign. Its recent reviews are listed as “Mostly Negative”, with 63 reviews in that category, while its overall rating remains “Mostly Positive” from 599 reviews. Dizzie has claimed on Discord that the negative reviews came from Kiwi Farms.
Some people have described Dizzie’s public statements as a meltdown. She has rejected that characterisation, saying she is reporting events in a matter-of-fact way. She also said that, after telling Valve the person who currently controlled the platform had sexually abused her, she was asked to obtain written permission from that person to regain access to the accounts.
Valve has been asked how it handles complicated ownership disputes of this kind and whether Fortune’s Run will return to sale. No outcome has been established, leaving the game’s development and availability unresolved.
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