As those of you who follow my Twitter account (see right hand side of page) know, I spent a good part of last night following up on a story that broke earlier in the day yesterday. Derek Smart, game developer and ex-Star Citizen pledge, posted via social media that he had received a death threat over his continued criticism of Chris Roberts and the handling of Star Citizen’s development. While death threats have become common enough that the media pretty much glosses over them these days, the source of the threat was even more interesting.
The email, posted in full by Smart to social media, originates from an sae.edu email address owned by Carlos Bott, mobile developer and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Smart also posted the raw data from the email to show that it did indeed originate from the SAE servers. MMO Fallout was able to corroborate via a third party source who wished to go unnamed that the email did originate from SAE’s servers likely using Google Apps to manage their email.
MMO Fallout reached out to Bott, who has fully denied sending the email in question. Judging from my contact with both parties, it seems very likely that this could break out into legal action in the near future. For our readers, we suggest not jumping to conclusions or presuming guilt until more details can be shared.
Any further information will be covered as it arises.