The controversy
Recently the game developers Digital Homicide has decided to pursue legal action against YouTube personality Jim Sterling after a long string of incidents where the they have butted heads. Digital Homicide didn’t much care for the criticism The Jimquisition leveled at their game The Slaughtering Grounds.
This led to them taking his video and editing in their own text “reviewing” Jim Sterling’s gameplay and eventually issueing a take-down notice against Jim’s original video.
The take-down didn’t last long and Jim Sterling now has the honor of being one of the few protected content makers on YouTube making it much harder for other parties to mess with his content and given the latest wave of take-downs to sweep popular channels this protected status of his seems to be something that would be coveted by any YouTuber (I would personally love to see Team Four Star focus on getting out more Dragon Ball Z Abridged episodes instead of fighting to keep existing episodes online or fighting to keep their channel from disappearing all together). Digital Homicide is suing for “assault, libel, and slander” to the tune of $10 million and most likely are basing the suit on his comment that they stole certain assets, a comment that he later corrected when he found out that he was mistaken. No matter what their angle of attack it’s clear this is about their inability to handle the criticism leveled at them by a man who makes his living by being a game critic, criticism that is in no way unfounded unlike their “review the reviewer” video which is laden with personal attacks and which, unlike Digital Homicide, Jim Sterling not only took in stride but had a good laugh even taking ownership of the phrase “I’m Jim Fucking Sterling Son” which appears repeatedly in the video. He even made a shirt out of it.
This has happened before
This isn’t the first time a game developer has had a public meltdown over criticism. A previous major incident that comes to mind is Phil Fish the creator of Fez who became know for his outrageous tweets finally ending in his leaving the industry altogether.
Fez got a lot of hype, so much hype that I bought the game... not because I had any interest in the game, I just bought into the hype. The game had sat in my steam library unplayed until today so I decided to install the game and check it out and I didn’t like it. I don’t have any real criticism to level at the game other than it just didn’t hold my interest, I played it for 15 minutes and just didn’t have a desire to play it any more. I uninstalled it and it will probably sit in my Steam library to continue to be ignored. I bought into the hype and he got my money and if I have any problem with that purchase the fault lies nowhere but with me. I mentioned that I had finally gotten around to playing Fez to a friend and the conversation went like this
“I finally loaded up Fez years after buying it, didn’t like it. Fucking over hyped.”
“I refuse. Phil Fish can eat dicks in hell forever. Same with Blow and Braid/The Witness”
“I bought it based on the hype, probably during a sale, years ago.Braid was another one that never appealed to me but I had bought based on the hype”
“But you just dont understand, it’s art. It’s a metaphor for nuclear war. ...no, it’s a shitty mario with a rewind button. Fez, at the very least, had an interesting mechanic.”
I didn’t follow up immediately but the comment about Braid nagged at me and I brought it back up later
“curious, maybe I missed something but what was the problem here or was it just that the dev is pretentious?”
“Blow is a giant douchenozzle.”
This prompted me to do a google search for why he might hold this opinion and I hit on an article that sums it up nicely Johnathan Blow is the Most Pretentious Man on Earth. The personalities of the game developers directly affected his opinion of the games they created to the point that no matter how good the game might actually be he refuses to in any way financially benefit the game creators because of their public interactions.
A more recent dust up comes to mind. Pewdiepie reviewed the game Bear Simulator and called it shit. I personally can’t stand Pewdiepie and decided to watch The Game Grumps play of the game and after seeing it I feel it’s hard to argue with Pewdiepie. I found this quote in the Kotaku article about the incident
“Well the game didn’t have a great reception, has a stigma against it’s name and there’s plenty of other problems so making any updates or going further is basically a lost cause now. Plus not skilled enough to make the game better than it currently is or write better updates than previously.”
This tells me that it wasn’t Pewdiepie’s negative comments that caused John Farjay to claim he was going to cease development on the game but it was his own lack of experience and a realization that he had gotten in over his head that was the main issue. Despite his comments Bear Simulator did get an update on March 3rd and still has a very positive rating on Steam. The Kotaku Article has updated with more recent information but Farjay’s initial reaction wasn’t a great move on his part even by his own admittance
“Ok, been in a really weird mood for a while now and cannot snap out of it. Has been really annoying and it shows. Need to get back to my original sarcastic self and stop being so complain-y.
Will try to make the next update funny and interesting.”
For the record Bear Simulator looks far better than anything in Digital Homicide’s library but I still don’t think it’s worth the $15 price tag.
Taking Criticism the Right Way
There is another game developer whose public interactions have affected my perception of his game. Tim Shaffer is very personable I want to get behind every project he is involved in because of his personality despite the fact that I am often disappointed to some degree at the actual release. Space Base DF9 comes to mind, I bought it on Early Access because I really loved the concept and even though the product I got was buggy I was patient and understood that this was part of the Early Access experience. The disappointment came when Double Fine decided to end development on the game which left a lot of the game owners unsatisfied with the finished product which led to Derelict Games to pick up unofficial continued development on Space Base DF9. Derelict Games has even released an unofficial update for the game very recently.
Did this disappointment cause me to swear off Double Fine games? No. Tim Shaffer over promised and under delivered and he’s done that a few times but not to the degree that Peter Molyneux does. Molyneux seems to be someone who is willing to literally promise anything to anyone if he thinks it will secure him funding where Shaffer has a decent idea of his abilities even though he sometimes falls short of the goal. I loved Psychonauts, it was a genuinely great game that sucked me in right to the end. I really enjoyed Brutal Legend even though it had some terrible elements, it’s a game that desperately needs a layer of polish that could have made it truly epic. There has been a lot of criticism leveled at Shaffer but he’s taken it in stride and has managed to maintain his fanbase. Double Fine recently released Day of the Tentacle Remastered, a remake of one of his classic games that his fans loved. Instead of lashing out at his critics he instead kept working to produce a game that appealed to his fanbase.
How Does This Apply to Digital Homicide?
In my personal opinion the developers at Digital Homicide are shit shovelers. They produce crap games at a rapid pace, games produced like this are commonly referred to as shovelware. I didn’t base my opinion of The Slaughtering Grounds on Jim Sterling’s opinion, I based my opinion on fact that the game looked like shit to me. If the game looked fun and I decided to buy it and it turned out to be fun I would just think that Sterling was full of shit but it doesn’t look good and Sterling doesn’t appear to have any ulterior motives in his opinion of the game. Their interactions with Sterling after that first video was practically an invitation for him to look at the rest of their library and his fans invited him to look at the rest of their library and he took both of those invitations.
Digital Homicide categorizes this as “continued coverage and harassment of every single title we have ever posted.” but the fact is that Jim Sterling IS a game critic and the videos related to Digital Homicide products make up a small percentage of his content and would probably have made up a much smaller percentage of his content if they hadn’t chosen to pick a fight with him. Jim Sterling made a video criticizing the method Digital Homicide uses to create its games but Digital Homicide isn’t the sole focus of that video.
While Digital Homicide does feature in the video Sterling’s main focus is a lazy game development style that is cluttering the Steam storefront with garbage games.
As I said Jim Sterling doesn’t focus solely on Digital Homicide and he doesn’t even reserve his most biting criticism for Digital Homicide games. No, that honor can be summed up in two words “Fuck Konami” and the justification for his hatred can be summed up in two letters “P.T.”
The reason for his ire isn’t because P.T. was a bad game, it’s because it was a fantastic demo that showed the extraordinary potential of the latest entry in the Silent Hill franchise, a franchise that had fallen into decline, a game that will never be made now and that seems to be all that Konami does anymore, waste the potential of all of the fantastic franchises they hold in their hands. He has repeatedly said “Fuck Konami” in multiple videos leveling scathing criticism at the game developers but Konami has failed to level a lawsuit against Jim Sterling even though they defiantly have the funds to do so. Why? Well the fact is that Jim Sterling isn’t the only one who is pissed off at Konami. There is a “Fuck Konami” anthem sung by Total Buscuit as other YouTube personalities laughed on.
In the case of Digital Homicide it appears as if Jim Sterling is the only one talking about Digital Homicide games. A search for The Slaughtering Grounds on YouTube fills the page with Jimquisition videos which may make it seem like Sterling is unfairly targeting the game developers but with a little more searching you can find other reviewers who mentioned the game. ProJared’s top ten worst games of 2014 has a mention of The Slaughtering Grounds, in fact he ranked the game the #1 worst game of 2014 and makes reference to the Digital Homicide meltdown and suggests viewers watch all of the videos in the Jim Sterling Digital Homicide meltdown saga stating that Sterling has born the brunt of Digital Homicide’s rampage after the negative reviews of their game and then stating “It’s one thing to make a truly terrible game but it’s even worse when you act like a giant baby about it”
Other than this it’s hard to find other YouTube personalities doing reviews on Digital Homicide games. Why? It may just be that their games just aren’t worth mentioning. They aren’t even bad in a “so bad it’s good” way, they are just lazily thrown together pieces of crap made with off the shelf assets and the only reason Jim Sterling had any reason to focus on the studio was because he bore the brunt of their temper tantrum.
I’ll admit it
I’m a fan of The Jimquisition. I have been since the first episode aired on The Escapist and that brings to mind one last person who had to handle harsh criticism leveled at him, Jim Fucking Sterling Son. Yeah, Sterling’s first videos were not well received and he was pretty sure his show was going to get canceled. He didn’t attack his critics, he didn’t threaten lawsuits he took it in stride and he paid attention to what his critics were saying. Since he was already pretty sure that his show was getting canceled he changed up his format and decided to have fun with it by developing a new persona. The new Jim Sterling didn’t apologize for his shortcomings, in fact he didn’t admit he had any at all and acted like he was gods gift to the game industry and that he was there to solve all of the industry’s problems even going so far as to prompt viewers at the end of the show to “Thank god for me” embodying a level of arrogance that reminds me of Chancellor Sutler from V for Vendetta. In making these changes to his show and persona Jim Sterling found success in a concept that he believed had been doomed. There was something endearing about Sterling and his commentary and criticisms seems fair and held weight (yeah, I couldn’t go a whole article without making a pun but Sterling seems to have a thick skin, a very thick skin, and I don’t think he’ll get offended... let alone sue me for $10 million). He earned his fanbase and got where he is today with a lot of hard work. Anyone who wants to be successful has to first come to the realization that it actually takes effort to achieve success.
Digital Suicide
Digital Homicide should have left well enough alone. They took some knocks but their games were crap. If they took the time and made the effort to release a good game or fix the issues critics had with their other games then it could have ended in a Cinderella story with critics applauding their efforts to rise above their limitations. That isn’t whats happened. They took the low road and in doing so they risk the potential of further upsetting the gaming community. There could be nasty repercussions in the future for Digital Homicide, they might be shunned by the very community they expect to buy their games. They might even get themselves kicked off Steam. Who would want to be associated these game developers with the way they act? It’s not like they are producing worthwhile or unique games so why distribute them at all?
Jim Fucking Sterling isn’t the problem with Digital Homicide. It’s the attitude of the developers, it’s the process by which they create their games, it’s the lack of talent and skill and experience and a lack of effort that keeps their games from selling and no amount of denial or tantrums or lawsuits are going to fix the flaws holding Digital Homicide back. I’m in the process of learning Unity myself and if I release a shit game for $10 it would be my honor to hear Jim Fucking Sterling call it shit on his show because at least then at least someone might fucking notice it.
Kotaku articles used for reference for Bear Simulator and the lawsuit, any talking out of my ass that occurred I did all on my own and yeah yeah TLDR also what the fuck is with all the video links, I’m trying to read this on my mobile you asshole. Pewdiepie can suck it. I bet Jim won’t even give me a tee shirt for this, it’s the fat joke, I knew I shouldn’t have made a fat joke.
