So, who stands to gain from the project being killed (i.e. if the developers get doxxed)? Steam/Valve, because they sell the PC version of the game? I don’t buy it. Sony? That’s an even greater stretch.

Bet on “people are stupid”: usually it’s the winning horse to these philosophical issues.

Humans are flawed, and make stupid things; sometime it’s not even about malice/narcissism, but because they are in hard time in their lives.

I don’t remember which project, but a volunteer developer sustained for many years a very popular dependency package for the web: it was free and companies worth millions used his software without ever-never give anything back. When the dude was in economic/life hardship he sabotaged his own project in some sort of form of protest.