The co-creator of one of the most popular computer games of all time was arrested this week for “sexual exploitation of a child.”
Jess Cliffe, who helped develop Counter-Strike, is expected to have a bail hearing on Friday but has not yet been charged with a crime, according to Seattle’s KIRO. Police have not released details of the crime and did not say whether a child was harmed.
Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike, tells Kotaku that it has suspended Cliffe while it investigates the incident.
Cliffe helped create Counter-Strike, a user-created modification of the game Half-Life, after Valve made that title’s source code available for free. More than 15 years after it was released, the game still has an active base of players.
Cliffe later joined Valve and worked on other titles including a follow-up to Counter-Strike, called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has proven even more popular than the original. As of 10:20 a.m. EST, 579,038 people were playing Global Offensive, according to data from Steam, the digital distribution service that hosts the game.
Valve, in a statement, tells Fortune, “We are still learning details of what actually happened. Reports suggest he has been arrested for a felony offense. As such we have suspended his employment until we know more.”
