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Midnight Society shuts down and kills Dead Drop game

In the wake of parting ways with gaming personality Dr. Disrespect, Midnight Society has closed its doors and killed the first-person shooter game Dead Drop.

The studio’s fortunes took a turn for the worse when cofounder and popular streamer Dr. Disrespect was accused in the summer of 2024 by a former Twitch employee that Dr. Disrespect had had sexually explicit conversations with a minor on the direct messaging part of Twitch — which was allegedly the reason he was banned on Twitch four years earlier in 2020. At the time, Twitch would only say it was due to a violation of community standards.

Dr. Disrespect, whose real name is Guy Beahm, sued Twitch and settled with the company in 2022. But more of the story started coming out in 2024.

“Listen, I’m obviously tied to legal obligations from the settlement with Twitch but I just need to say what I can say since this is the fucking internet,” Dr. Disrespect said at the time in mid-2024. “I didn’t do anything wrong, all this has been probed and settled, nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid.”

But in June 2024, Midnight Society parted ways with Dr. Disrespect after it learned of more detailed allegations that he had inappropriate conversations with a minor while at Twitch. The company said it began speaking with parties involved and then announced, “We are terminating our relationship with Guy Beahm immediately. While these facts are difficult to hear and even more difficult to accept, it is our duty to act with dignity on behalf of all individuals involved, especially the fifty-five developers and families we have employed along with our community of players.”

Dr. Disrespect continues to stream on YouTube.

Here’s Midnight Society’s full statement from Twiiter.

Midnight Society is shutting its doors.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.