Jim Sterling / James "Stephanie" Sterling / James Stanton/Sexton & in memoriam TotalBiscuit (John Bain) - One Gaming Lolcow Thread

[Kevin Grumbles]

If only CDPR had a huge army of autists making unofficial patches with lists of fixes so long they read like novellas.

While I remember being impressed with Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim on a presentation level, I don't remember actually enjoying playing them all that much due to how badly they'd fall apart after about 10 hours. Fallout 4 didn't even give me that. The only reason they survive is because everyone mods the shit out of them and credits Bethesda for the skeleton rather than the free work that put all the big titty anime girl companions fixes and additional content there to make it work and be enjoyable. They know this and have actively admitted to relying on it instead of putting in the effort.

Nobody should ever aspire to make Bethesda style open worlds because even Bethesda can't make them; thousands of unpaid autsists make them well after the fact while Todd enjoys keeping his team free from crunch and culpability that they are more than happy to slam Obsidian with (Some would say intentionally to save face, New Vegas was extremely unfinished and forced out early and STILL blew them out of the water in storytelling. If given the time needed they'd have been competing releases with Skyrim and I wager we'd be playing New Vegas on our fancy fridges instead.) and yet are allowed to take all the credit for the work.

 

[The Ugly One]

Skyrim continues to have game-breaking and save-breaking bugs on the PS4 and PS5. There was another patch released a few days ago that broke a ton of things. I can only imagine what an unholy mess of spaghetti their Gamebryo "engine" is.

 

[Null]

If you work for a company that treats you like shit, doesn't pay you enough, and rapes you, why not quit? I don't get it. Companies can't afford to lose employees. Just walk.

 

[Matt Damon]

There was a thing in the 90s/00s where if you wanted to order some "video nasties"

What is with the Brits and picking the gayest-sounding colloquialisms possible for everything?

I'm sure there's a causal link between being routinely exposed to faggy terms like this and Jim's degeneracy and trooning out.

 

[Yeshuash]

If you work for a company that treats you like shit, doesn't pay you enough, and rapes you, why not quit? I don't get it. Companies can't afford to lose employees. Just walk.

Fear for financial stability. So you bounce from the company, then what? You need to pay rent, have food expenses and maybe even a family to support. People are just bread into the idea that he company IS there life and they can't even imagine an alternative to support themselves.

 

[Null]

Fear for financial stability. So you bounce from the company, then what? You need to pay rent, have food expenses and maybe even a family to support. People are just bread into the idea that he company IS there life and they can't even imagine an alternative to support themselves.

Go work for a company that doesn't rape you. Do freelance. Live at your parents who probably won't rape you.

 

[Creepy Joe]

I'm not about "That other thing is shit" argument. With CP2077 people trashed it hard as if it raped there hamster. As if buggy releases never happened. I used the Skyrim comparison to point out how approaching games changed. Skyrim was a janky, crashy etc. mess, but it is hailed as the second coming of gaming Jesus.

Not to mention CDPR has been putting out update after update and now all the major issues as well as most of the lesser ones have been fixed while Skyrim is still flat out broken.

We knew what Skyrim was going to be from the beginning. And we knew that it would be buggy, because all Bethesda developed games are.

Cyberpunk on the other hand was a scam:

 

[Yeshuash]

Go work for a company that doesn't rape you. Do freelance. Live at your parents who probably won't rape you.

When you get chewed up by the corpo machine, logic does not come to you that easily.

That's why whenever there are sudden reveals of abuse in companies it's always a hoard of people coming out as by themselves they would never speak up but when a mob forms suddenly all of them turn into freedom fighters.

 

[Yeshuash]

We knew what Skyrim was going to be from the beginning. And we knew that it would be buggy, because all Bethesda developed games are.

Cyberpunk on the other hand was a scam:

Posting Crowbcats video is the least useful source of information on the subject as he was one of the many YT influencers that jumped on the CP hate train to harvest clicks.
And before you start calling me a shill or a CDPR ass licker, I'm just avoiding drama and mob mentality on this subject. The game has it's problems but it is in no way Satan's left testicle as the media would make you it is.

Want to have a calm/neutral discussion on the subject? go here:

r/LowSodiumCyberpunk

r/LowSodiumCyberpunk: Welcome to /r/LowSodiumCyberpunk: A lighthearted and fun place to discuss Cyberpunk 2077! We focus on positivity, kindness …

www.reddit.com

 

[Oliver Onions]

If you work for a company that treats you like shit, doesn't pay you enough, and rapes you, why not quit? I don't get it. Companies can't afford to lose employees. Just walk.

I see two possibilities:
A) All this shit is overblown if not entirely made up and 99% of people do their job without incident.
B) Bugmen with no initiative want everyone else to make their shitty job comfier instead of finding a better one.

 

[DoubleD]

So on a complete whim, I put on the latest episode of Jim's podcast (subscribed to it a few years ago for non-lolcow purposes). You're going to love this.

Apparently someone threw him on a pile of thumb tacks (is this a common wrestling move? I don't know as I don't watch gay shit), which Jim had planned on using as his own weapon (is this common? Again, I don't watch wrestling). Here's how he copes with his loss:

https://soundcloud.com/jimquisition%2Fpodquisition-364-sharp-shiny-and-small

(Also, Jim has really lost touch with his Britbong ways. Over here, we call them drawing pins. No idea why.)

JAMES STEPHANIE STERLING: So, thumb tacks?
CONRAD ZIMMERMANN: Mm.
LAURA KATE DALE: Yeah?
CONRAD: They're sharp!
JAMES: They're quite sharp!
LAURA: I've heard that like, you know, you should--you should really avoid them making, you know, fast contact with skin. It's not good for it!
JAMES: Let me not put to fine a point on it - ah hah...
[PAUSES FOR LAUGHTER]
CONRAD: Hmmmm...
LAURA: Yeaaahhh...
JAMES: I... I put a very fine myself on the point. And, let me tell you...
[LONG PAUSE]
JAMES: It's a refreshing experience!
CONRAD: Oh, I bet it w--I bet that it's bracing!
JAMES: Oh God yeah, it's like--ooh, I'll tell you what. If you--If you're half asleep [CO-HOSTS LAUGH], on a winter's morning, you open the window, and just get that... that--that... bracing, uhhhhh...
CONRAD: That gust of wind.
JAMES: ...blast of cold air, yeah! Something that really wakes you up!
LAURA: It's like a cold shower, but made of pain.
JAMES: Yes! Indeed, indeed. This past weekend, I had a cold shower made of pain!!
CONRAD: Which actually might be a metaphor for the whole experience of trying to take control of Ryse, when you think about it.
JAMES: Yeah... yeah... yeah...!
LAURA: I'm assuming from the lack of uh... 'Grand Champion of Ryse' as your new, like, social media handle... guessing... might now have gone so well?
LAURA: I mean, I know how it went, I talk to you outside this podcast, but for the purpose of the fiction here, I.. Ah, I wonder how it went?
JAMES: Yeahhhhh.....
JAMES: Yes, I... didn't win.
[AWKWARD LAUGHS FROM CO-HOSTS]
JAMES: I, to my credit, put up... a hell of a fight.
CONRAD: As Brandon noted on Twitter.
JAMES: Indeed. As noted in the match, I actually um... Brandon got the mic at the end of the match. Uh, for those who aren't aware, I had, uh, an 'I Quit' match for uh... full operative control of Ryse Wrestling. And I've been talking about it for several weeks, been very excited about owning my own Pittsburgh promotion, I... didn't winnn...
LAURA: Not this time!
JAMES: No... But, I--I delivered on my other promise of it being the most violent thing I've ever fucking done.
LAURA: I'm very proud of you, I have seen... li'l bits of you, uh...
JAMES: Yeah!
LAURA: ...doin' a real impressive... doin' a Wrestling! No one can say you don't do wrestling.
JAMES: At the time of talking, the show isn't public yet. I'm actually not happy about that. But um... Yeah, uh... At the end of the match, Brandon actually got the mic and um... said "Let's drop the whole evil commander thing for a moment, uh, you put up a hell of a fight. You... that took guts." And then actually I--I, got a... uh... a round of respectful applause from the audience.
LAURA: And then what happened?!
JAMES: Then he said "Moment's over. You're fired."
CONRAD: Oh.
LAURA: Yeah... That's not gonna be good for your career at Ryse.
JAMES: Yeaahhh...
LAURA: Getting fired is not typically good for career progression!
JAMES: Not having one... is pretty bad for the career!
LAURA: Yeah. It's pretty hard to advance a career you don't have!
JAMES: Yeah, they fired meeeee...
LAURA: Well. That just means you've gonna have to... you're gonna have to find a new... takeover to stage!
JAMES: The Commander's not done.
LAURA: Oh, of course not.
JAMES: The Commander is not done. This is a... setback. Yes, I was forced to say the words "I quit." into a microphone, which I, you know, said with--with elegant dignity and a--and a quiet understatement... uh, after being thrown into a pile of thumb tacks and then battered multiple times with a steel chair.
LAURA: It seemed almost like you weren't going to, and then you got hit one more time with the chair and then out it came.
JAMES: Yeah, it's just a little... needed a little extra squeeze to push the poo out.
[LONG PAUSE]
JAMES: I don't feel well.
LAURA: Well, it's a good thing you're here, on Podquisition.
JAMES: It's a good thing I'm here. It's a good th--I've still got this job! I've still got this job.
LAURA: Yeah, we--we've yet to do a Podquisition 'I Quit' episode.
JAMES: Yet.
LAURA: Yeah, we've yet to have one of those, yet.
JAMES: Yet.
LAURA: But you know what we do have here? We got video games.
JAMES: No we don't.

And that's all I had time to transcribe, but that was the most important part. They do talk a bit more about the wrestling, and the rest is about games and game industry news.

It's interesting to note though, how much you get the sense that Jim really doesn't like video games. From the moment where he pretends not to know what a video game is, and makes a joke about it having something to do with VHS tapes. And later, when he's talking about a game that he says is really good, but implies at least part of the game's appeal to him is that "it sort-of plays itself". He can just leave the Switch on his desk while he's doing other things go back to the game occasionally to place cards. (The game in question is Loop Hero.)

I'm no psychologist, but if I was to take a complete stab in the dark, I'd say that Jim really desperately wants out of the video game biz, and to pivot into something – anything else. The trouble is that he worries that he'd lose so much of his audience by doing this, even his patrons might ditch him.

Wrestling was perhaps going to be his big exit strategy – and he still does have a couple of shows coming up, but he really was counting on that last match to be the one that propels him into the stratosphere if he's ever to have a chance at making this a full-time or even part-time income. So with this episode, you see how much pain Jim's in, as reality sets in that he'll be reviewing games for at least the foreseeable future, suckling on the teat of an industry he hates. I almost feel sorry for him.

 

[Bolo]

TL;DR If you don't wanna deal with Bioware-style crunch don't ever work for a gigantic megacorp where you're just one tiny cog in the machine. Honestly I dunno why anyone would wanna work for a AAA company these days; go code for literally anything else.

Reliable and great payday, benefits and profit share. And if you are a coding superstar, these studios will suck your dick to keep you happy, even if your job is the most stressfull one, if you see senior programmers dropping from a project, then the studio fucked up big time.

Going indie does give you freedom, but doesn't guarantee sucess, and you also need a good team of art and game design if all you can do is program.

And there is also the prestige, a lot of these guys like being on team big game studio. Gonna do some mid power level here, but my experience with game dev is mostly pre-viz, pre production mostly, I've never been in the thick of it when it comes to game dev, but a lot of the mentality I saw in game studios is what I saw in Burbanks' animation, the grunts eat a lot of shit thinking they make part of the magic, even if they bitch constantly, they also believe they are better than others for being part of a big studio, that goes triple if you work for stuff like Disney, because they cultivate this elitist mentality amongst their ranks even if all you can offer by the end of the day is a security card with Mickey Mouse on it and maybe a story about how a celebrity du jour looked at your way during a movie premiere.

 

[Matt Damon]

So with this episode, you see how much pain Jim's in, as reality sets in that he'll be reviewing games for at least the foreseeable future, suckling on the teat of an industry he hates. I almost feel sorry for him.

The bigger-picture problem is that Jim instinctively bites the hand that feeds him and is too lazy to even make his criticisms in constructive ways that take the economic/logistical/technical realities of the situation into account.

Even if he'd been able to magically make the leap to wrasslin' and get his large audience on board, it'd only be a matter of time before he started demanding the impossible from management, called his fans transphobes for enjoying wrestling, and started tilting at every wrestling-related windmill he could find.

 

[Pizdec]

I'm no psychologist, but if I was to take a complete stab in the dark, I'd say that Jim really desperately wants out of the video game biz, and to pivot into something – anything else. The trouble is that he worries that he'd lose so much of his audience by doing this, even his patrons might ditch him.

Because he got sick of video games after being sued. After being the guy in charge of trying to stem the myriad of terrible games, of course he hates them, who wouldn't? The only thing Jim won't admit is that it's now a grift, cause he probably burned bridges with his previous employers, who in turn likely don't even want him back even as a diversity hire.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I hope, more than anything, that Jim really was pinning (AHAHAHA SEE I CAN DO IT TOO JIM) all his hopes on wrestling being his ticket out of games journalism.

It's so sad and delusional it makes perfect sense that Jim --a morbidly obese tranny pushing 40 with documented back problems-- would actually believe he could do it.

 

[Bolo]

I thought Sterling was one of the heads of this wrestle group he was part of, how did he get fired, or is that one of those gay wrestle storylines?

I don't know much about wrestle, I have no idea how this "kayfabe" shit works.

 

[Open Window Maniac]

Do you think Jim would reverse the decline of his channel if he switched exclusively to making videos about wrestling? It would at least be something different from his usual fare that's staler than a month-old piece of bread.

 

[Computer Guardian]

Do you think Jim would reverse the decline of his channel is switched exclusively to making videos about wrestling? It would at least be something different from his usual fare that's staler than a month-old piece of bread.

I would assume he'd find some way to make it stale like he did with his gaming content in some way.

 

[Arocyt]

I hope, more than anything, that Jim really was pinning (AHAHAHA SEE I CAN DO IT TOO JIM) all his hopes on wrestling being his ticket out of games journalism.

It's so sad and delusional it makes perfect sense that Jim --a morbidly obese tranny pushing 40 with documented back problems-- would actually believe he could do it.

I'm surprised he's stuck with performing as long as he has. Like you said, pushing 40 with back problems make it unlikely he would get anywhere far as an actual wrestler and he doesn't seem to really appreciate the shit talking manager joke character thing as much as he probably should, which he'd fit into better.
I'm also shocked he hasn't really tried to make a spin off channel yet crawling into the YouTube wrestling review and commentary side of stuff. It seems like a more successful use of his interest in the business and he could potentially have a bit of a head start with his video game YouTube background.
It's more in line with his history and 'skillset', it's easier than actually fucking training and wrestling for a crowd of 20 people, it's a decently large field of youtube content and interest. But he wants to actually be in the ring even though he's not at all fit to make a career out of it.
But Kim Justice already exists and that community doesn't need another fat troon talking about wrestling anyway.

I thought Sterling was one of the heads of this wrestle group he was part of, how did he get fired, or is that one of those gay wrestle storylines?

I don't know much about wrestle, I have no idea how this "kayfabe" shit works.

If a wrestler tells you in the ring you're fired in a match billed as a dramatic "I Quit" - i.e. "if you lose you're fired" match, you can guarantee the result is all storyline.
He mentions in that podcast that its been an ongoing storyline where he was trying to take over "full control" of the company and the match was the deciding factor in whether he was successful or not.
Jim almost certainly speaking in kayfabe, pretending the stipulations and results were real.

If Jim really does have an actual position in the real company this might just mean he's done physically appearing for a while though and taking a back seat. That's how the I Quit Loser Leaves The Company shit used to get used a lot. Give wrestlers breaks or transition them to backstage roles with the bonus of making a dramatic return in the future.

 

[Gloria From Pokemon Sword]

Sorry to interrupt the talk of Jimbo being a star in the American Opera known as wrestling, but...

Are you tired of Jim Sterling's skits?
Are you sick of being told Capitalism is bad?
Are you just plain done of listening to a Brit convince you his tits are true and honest?
Do you think Jim is/was capable of making good points but he's too much of a spiteful, bigoted, terminally-online Twitter weirdo to live up to that capacity?
If you said yes to any of these, then don't worry.

Gloria From Pokemon Sword (and Shield) Presents:
THE JIMLESS JIMQUISITION
with your host: not Jim Sterling

Today's Revisited Topic Topic:
Valve, Indies, And Spam​

Remember when the former vidya game commenter formerly but still actually yet not preferably known as Jim Sterling brought up Valve's open-door policy with their storefront? Well, that deserves a more level-headed approach if you ask me.

Now, once upon a lifetime ago, Steam was a hard storefront to get onto. If your game made it, then you made it. Things like the Stanley Parable were the standards that had to be reached to get on Steam. Valve did eventually loosen up, but it quickly went far in the other direction, with 100+ games a day being released on Steam going from a single laughable case of excess to the status quo of Steam.

And saying most of these games are pure garbage wouldn't surprise anyone. So instead, allow me to say you the trouble of hearing what you already know and instead answer a question: why does this matter? It's not like those hackbuster films that tricky Grandma Taters into buying Cars Life 3 by mistake; people know $0,40 budget game made in a week when they see it, and anyone dumb enough to buy it deserves what get after the first scam, right?

You would be 100% correct... if that was the problem. This is not a matter of Scam but Spam.

You see, when 100 games are released but only 2 are games intended to be played instead of mined for trading cards or bitcoin or whatever else people are using in money-laundering schemes today, what happens to those two games? That first day is the only day they get the front-page results on the "new releases" page, and the next day, there are 100 more. And that just keeps going day after day.

Valve eventually (and I do mean eventually) added an algorithm that recommended games to players based on what they play and what they look up. And to be clear, this was an improvement. Steam is better with this in place than they were without it. However, it's more so side-stepping the problem rather than actually fixing it: Getting a game noticed on Steam requires you to either have word of mouth from YouTubers or an advertising budget to stand above the crowd. By letting literally anyone on Steam even if the quality of the product is so low the actually blind could spot it out as such has continued the original problem.

Of course, it's not just Valve's fault. Steam Greenlight was effectively Valve letting the people decide for themselves what they wanted, and the people quickly made it apparent why power is often consolidated. For every legitimately good game trying to get through on Greenlight, there were ten to a hundred crap games getting by on jokes or scams with trading cards. While part of this can be placed on Valve for them not weeding suggestions out before throwing them to the public, it was the userbase that turned Greenlight into Memelight.

A healthy market needs ethical, observant vendors with ethical, vigilant consumers; Greenlight proved Steam really lacks either.

Thanks to every console having a fully digital store-front available and even the worst of them in terms of spam (Nintendo's E-Shop currently has that award) is nowhere as bad as Steam, actually getting an independently made game noticed by an ideal audience is ultimately easier than ever. But remember this cautionary tale: the Atari Game crash was due to the lack of proper publishers and literally everyone (down to dog food companies) producing games of no quality. The bigger companies survived it when the NES provided a more stable market, but smaller ones weren't so lucky. Steam Spam on all digital storefronts is very unlikely to crash the industry, but it may very well bury those who need those storefronts the most.

---

I may do more of these in the future. Any advice on what you'd like to see from them is welcome. Anyway, carry on with Jimbo's belly flop career.