2 weeks ago
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A suspect in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has been identified by the New York Police Department as Luigi Magione, a co-founder of the University of Pennsylvania's first video game development club. A LinkedIn account belonging to Mangione, who as reported by NBC was arrested earlier today, indicates that he also worked as a programming intern at Firaxis Games for one year and four months beginning in 2016, helping to fix hundreds of bugs in Civilization 6.
The LinkedIn professional page under his name self-describes Magione as having "Fixed over 300 UI bugs (25% of UI bug count) using Lua language, Jira software, and Perforce version-control system" and "Worked with 10-person Scrum team in Agile environment" on the Civilization 6 team. The biography shows that Magione went on to earn a Masters of Science in Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2020. Magione's Facebook page also includes a claim that appears to validate his time at Firaxis. (Shortly after this story went live, the page was deleted.)
Responding to PC Gamer, a representative of Firaxis parent company 2K Games wrote via email, "As a practice, we do not comment on former employees."
Mangione's LinkedIn page points to a strong interest in tech and gaming in particular. In a 2018 interview posted on the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science blog (via the Wayback Machine), Mangione said he taught himself how to code in high school, which is what led him into computer science at the college level, and eventually to launching the school's game dev organization: "I just really wanted to make games."
"A lot of people ask us, 'I don’t code; can I be part of game development? And we’re like, 'Yes, please — we have a lot of programmers, and need people who aren’t'," Mangione said at the time. "It’s cool because if you think about game development, you have a team of 10, maybe with four programmers, two designers, three artists, a musician, and a writer, all from different majors and parts of the school who can be interested."
A little-used Twitter account under Mangione's name, registered in 2016, doesn't include any mention of Civilization 6 or gaming in general, other than featuring an image of the Pokémon Breloom in the banner.
An avid game developer and gamer?
A Steam profile named "Pep" with the word "(Luigi)" as the description and matching avatar seemingly belonging to Mangione is visible to the public on Steam. The user is admin of a small Steam group for the game development club that Mangione belonged to at the University of Pennsylvania, and a member of a four-member group called UPenn L4D2 Squad. The account owns 299 games, has 2,947 total hours on record according to SteamDB's Steam Calculator, no VAC or other bans on record, and was created in 2013, when Magione would have been approximately 15 years old.
The gameplay history is consistent with someone who is an avid gamer and game developer, featuring playtime with many prominent independent games and other popular games of the last decade:
- 403.7 hours in PUBG: Battlegrounds
- 254.7 hours in Terraria
- 213.8 hours in Rocket League
- 172.6 hours in Civilization 6
- 136.6 hours in Don't Starve
Further into the account history, these games can also be seen:
- 60.1 hours in Stardew Valley
- 51.5 hours in Halo Infinite
- 27.4 hours in Among Us
- 18.1 hours in Fez, with 100% achievement completion
- 10.7 hours in Civilization 5
- 8.8 hours in Superhot
- 8.5 hours in Mr.President!, a game that depicts absurdist assassination attempts
- 4.7 hours in Undertale
- 106 minutes in Indie Game: The Movie
The wishlist for the account, last updated in October 2021, lists Half-Life: Alyx, Subnautica, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, BioShock Infinite, Journey, Outer Wilds, and other games.
Mangione was arrested earlier today in Altoona, Pennsylvania after a McDonald's employee in the town thought he looked suspicious and called police. He hadn't been charged with Thompson's murder at the time of the report, but police said he was found with a gun similar to the one used in the shooting that, according to police (via The Guardian), may have been made using a 3D printer, as well as a silencer, a fake New Jersey ID—also believed to be used by the killer when he checked into a hostel prior to the shooting—and a three-page manifesto that indicates "some ill will toward corporate America."
A few hours after his arrest, a video promising "the truth" was posted to a YouTube channel attributed to Mangione. It's not confirmed whether the channel is actually his, but the account associated with the channel was created in January 2024, nearly a full year prior to the shooting. Shortly after it went up, however, the channel and its associated videos—a second "part 2" video was set to go live at 6:45 pm ET—were deleted.
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