Starbound developement halted due to "sexual predator"

Indie developers Chucklefish have been forced to temporarily halt development on their game Starbound in order to assist police investigate an individual who has been using the game and its forums as a means of targeting young children.

Finn "Tiy" Brice confirmed the delay on Twitter with the following statement: "Delaying development to deal with a sexual predator targeting children. Just in case anyone is wondering."

Community manager Molly Carroll elaborated further in this post on Reddit: ""The person in question has been permanently banned and we're looking into how to proceed re: involving authorities. To clarify, it's not a serious "We're delaying the game!" sort of deal, but situations like this do distract from actual game development."

"There are a lot of underage people on our forums. If someone is messaging you in private in a way that's making you uncomfortable (especially in a sexual way), you can always message me or another staff member and we'll look into it and handle it."

Starbound, and games of a similar nature (if you don't know, it's a 2D space adventure influenced by games like Minecraft) are popular with younger gamers. Hopefully the investigation will be swift and the perpetrator is brought to justice, so Chucklefish can continue to develop their game and young gamers enjoying the title can play it in safety.