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

[AirdropShitposts]

Channel review for the month of January 2023:
Videos Uploaded: 5

• Jimquisition ('Dead Services', 199k views)
• Jimquisition ('Square Enix Can't Stop Being Terrible', 161k views)
• Jimquisition ('When Wizards Of The Coast Tried To Be A D&D Landlord', 187k views)
• Jimquisition ('Marvel's Avengers: The Disgrace That Was', 163k views)
• Jimquisition ('Those Layoffs', 131k views)

So he didn't get to that large expose of Rowling's fascism before the game came out he promised? Or should we expect that in the next day or two?

 

[Oliver Onions]

So he didn't get to that large expose of Rowling's fascism before the game came out he promised? Or should we expect that in the next day or two?

Has there been much else going on he could moan about lately? Maybe it'll be today's JQ (but I doubt it).

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Then again shouldn't his podcast provide an outlet for a lot of this? Let him talk news and politics and all that?

That breed of liberal? If they don't cram their politics into everything, they're just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis. And by Nazis, they mean Republicans. And by Republicans, they mean anyone they can attack so they can feel better for being fat, bitter losers who squandered any potential happiness on poor decisions.

I wonder what did more damage to Sterling in the long run, quitting Escapist so he could do Jimquisition how he wanted, or hiring Dale as a cohost on the podcast?

 

[Kel1 shi1]

Has there been much else going on he could moan about lately? Maybe it'll be today's JQ (but I doubt it).

There's an open goal there to rant about Hogwarts.

 

[Monuklear]

If you watch the oldest Jimquistion content he mostly did editorials and opinion pieces on the industry, comments on that week's news were quick snippets. This was during the time he had other avenues to actually discuss the news, like written articles. Sure, often something would happen in the industry to spark a discussion, but it was used as a relevancy springboard to a larger topic.

I think the biggest issue became when Jim make Jimquistion increasingly news centric. Weekly 10-30 minute videos aren't good enough for covering the industry news. YongYea might say a lot of nothing, but his rapid upload schedule of "whenever there's news" even if it is a mild expansion on a developing story means he can keep on top of a changing and developing story, and shift his stance better to fit the popular opinion if needed, or if things change. He can also stay current.

A weekly format can do this, but you need to have a dedicated wrap up for it. Jim could actually do a Saturday news wrap up, just shot gunning his opinions on everything that week, then use Monday for big stories that are wrapped up and the story is known as a deep dive, or to do editorials. This would let him talk about dumb shit he cares about. Heck, toss in a Wednesday video that is wrestling related.

Then again shouldn't his podcast provide an outlet for a lot of this? Let him talk news and politics and all that?

Jim has his shitty website where he can spout all his inane opinions in written form. I don't think the format or even the content schedule are the problem here. The guy just clearly a loser who got popular for shouting the most obvious video game takes in le silly bri'ish accent, dug himself into a holding pattern, lost his marbles and eventually trooned out because that's the only thing that got his ED-addled dick up.
His videos are boring, pointless and stupid because he is boring, pointless and stupid.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I wonder what did more damage to Sterling in the long run, quitting Escapist so he could do Jimquisition how he wanted, or hiring Dale as a cohost on the podcast?

Inviting Dale and others like him into his life has definitely fucked Jim up way more than quitting The Escapist.

I don't think we have any way of knowing what salary he was being paid there, but I can't imagine The Escapist were paying six-figure sums to their content creators, so him making the move to Patreon almost certainly resulted in a massive windfall.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

He is expected to lose another thousand this week, btw. Only question is when

 

[Slur Generator]

He is expected to lose another thousand this week, btw. Only question is when

his sub loss is slowing down. Hopefully he comes out with a demented take on the open world wizard game that plunges him below 800k.

 

[Cap-tan]

That breed of liberal? If they don't cram their politics into everything, they're just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis. And by Nazis, they mean Republicans. And by Republicans, they mean anyone they can attack so they can feel better for being fat, bitter losers who squandered any potential happiness on poor decisions.

I wonder what did more damage to Sterling in the long run, quitting Escapist so he could do Jimquisition how he wanted, or hiring Dale as a cohost on the podcast?

Dale definitely destroyed him more than anything. More than his stepdad, back injury and drug addiction combined.

 

[Just_a_Bored_Guy]

You ever notice that like 80% of Jim's videos can be distilled to "This thing makes games worse, stop supporting them"? Rumbleverse:

Side note, I've seen a few Hogwarts Legacy reviews start with a disclaimer about JK. So, mission accomplished for them, I guess?

 

[Oliver Onions]

I'm not putting myself through another Jim video again so soon, but please tell me he's not actually claiming he alone predicted that a slew of games all exclusively competing for player's attention for the rest of time wasn't a sustainable business model.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

I'm not putting myself through another Jim video again so soon, but please tell me he's not actually claiming he alone predicted that a slew of games all exclusively competing for player's attention for the rest of time wasn't a sustainable business model.

Not only does he claim that but he readily fellates himself about it for half the video because of it, he's not a genius for thinking this because how many times have people jumped on a genre bandwagon only to lose out a few years down the line?

 

[Funeral for a Furry]

That breed of liberal? If they don't cram their politics into everything, they're just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis. And by Nazis, they mean Republicans. And by Republicans, they mean anyone they can attack so they can feel better for being fat, bitter losers who squandered any potential happiness on poor decisions.

I wonder what did more damage to Sterling in the long run, quitting Escapist so he could do Jimquisition how he wanted, or hiring Dale as a cohost on the podcast?

Dale was an odd pick, not the most engaging of soles, & has become the bog standard face of the Autistic middle-class trans.
It was the whole fake kidnapping claim that showed what a bs merchant Dale was.

 

[Oliver Onions]

He's not a genius for thinking this because how many times have people jumped on a genre bandwagon only to lose out a few years down the line?

Even if we hadn't seen this before, it was obvious to everyone that it's physically impossible to have all the Gamers™ adopt all the live services. Even if you are a full-force NEET doing nothing but playing games all day you would only have time to balance maybe 3 LS games, simultaneously. I wager even the publishers who pushed these games knew this wasn't sustainable, long-term, but the chance of being the next Fortnite or Overwatch was worth rolling the dice, regardless.

I don't know if this shows how much of an echo chamber Jim exists in or if it's just that his ego is as bloated and his gunt.

 

[Zizara]

I liked Boglinwatch as well despite the consoomerism, but I can see why people hate it.

Boglinwatch might be the last thing Jim did that I genuinely, 100% enjoyed and he put actual effort in to. I was sad to see him run out of interest in it and the similar styles of content he did early in his independent career. I don't know if they aired outside the UK but it hit a very specific niche of surreal humour for me akin to the likes of The Mighty Boosh and Noel Fielding's work in general, but a little darker. I'd assume they were an inspiration/influence as it tracks with British culture pre Jim's move to America.

 

[Prince Vegeta]

How typical that at the same time Disney is going belly up exactly as all the critics warned would happen, and the comics industry are finally coming to the realisation that they fucked up by using the same model, as industry members and critics warned them would happen... Jim tries to pretend he alone made the same observation about a gaming industry that uses the same model and that industry members and critics warned would come to destroy them. Thank God for Jim.

 

[Spud gun]

Boglinwatch might be the last thing Jim did that I genuinely, 100% enjoyed and he put actual effort in to. I was sad to see him run out of interest in it and the similar styles of content he did early in his independent career. I don't know if they aired outside the UK but it hit a very specific niche of surreal humour for me akin to the likes of The Mighty Boosh and Noel Fielding's work in general, but a little darker. I'd assume they were an inspiration/influence as it tracks with British culture pre Jim's move to America.

Boglins were released in the US too, though some of them had different names. Plunk and Flurp were called Vlobb and Drool in the USA, they aren't the only name swapped Boglins though.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

I don't know if this shows how much of an echo chamber Jim exists in or if it's just that his ego is as bloated and his gunt.

Its absolutely for his ego, he mentions at some point in the video about people calling him out for his shitty takes in his written reviews which makes sense why he'd turn around and try a spin "look how smart I was" narrative to deflect rightful criticism.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

Jim has his shitty website where he can spout all his inane opinions in written form. I don't think the format or even the content schedule are the problem here. The guy just clearly a loser who got popular for shouting the most obvious video game takes in le silly bri'ish accent, dug himself into a holding pattern, lost his marbles and eventually trooned out because that's the only thing that got his ED-addled dick up.
His videos are boring, pointless and stupid because he is boring, pointless and stupid.

A website he stopped doing written content on years ago. I used to prefer his written content to his video, but he moved more to video mostly because no one cares for written anymore in his eyes.

Inviting Dale and others like him into his life has definitely fucked Jim up way more than quitting The Escapist.

I don't think we have any way of knowing what salary he was being paid there, but I can't imagine The Escapist were paying six-figure sums to their content creators, so him making the move to Patreon almost certainly resulted in a massive windfall.

I know certain individuals were making six figures after quiet bonuses from certain interactions at bars and us doing the math. Jim wasn't there through I don't suspect.

Dale definitely destroyed him more than anything. More than his stepdad, back injury and drug addiction combined.

Dale was an odd pick, not the most engaging of soles, & has become the bog standard face of the Autistic middle-class trans.
It was the whole fake kidnapping claim that showed what a bs merchant Dale was.

When I first saw Dale it was on the co-optional podcast that TB hosted. I remember my order of thought was "who is this tranny and what have they done to get invited onto the show?" Since it is worth remembering that typically the people TB brought on we're not complete nobody's in the gaming circles. They usually were somebody I would recognize as somebody who cared about starcraft esports and was right at that age where I was consuming a lot of gaming YouTube. I found Dale mostly mundane for the time, nothing stood out. Nothing made me want to look up their history or their work, I did find the fixation on asses a bit weird. But whatever it was just another person on the show and sometimes they weren't that great. It took total biscuit bringing on an actual WWE wrestler for me to not know who the how he was bringing on the next time. That is how just not in any of the radar Dale was for someone like me at the time. I looked a little bit into what Dale was all about at that time and the accessibility to gaming thing is something I'm not too against.

Most of it is handled quite well and most of what you need to do to add accessibility for the colorblind or hard of hearing, and once upon a time I was dating a deaf chick so I became more aware of needing that type of thing, is very easy to toss into a game with failed disrupting anyone and actually typically just makes you eyes easier to read anyways. If you want to make something work for the color blind, you usually add symbols as well as color coding, If you want to make something work for the heart of hearing you out of visual cue. That is all it takes. Dale, making it out to be this crusade is completely pointless. There is no large crusade needed. Most studios do this and they don't draw any attention to it. It turns out that good accessibility design has become good UI design and is usually praised by the normies more than enough to have it catch on without needing to make it an accessibility issue. Otherwise Dale is just the weird butt fetishizing grifter.

I also used to watch a lot of Jim, and I remember watching Jim celebrate becoming independent on the co-optional, and I remember seeing him later on making his podcast and having Dale on it. I still couldn't get why the hell he had Dale on his podcast as one of his other two co-hosts. Initially, the inclusion of Gavin helped level out the podcast, but I have posted it earlier in the thread where Gavin had left because he just couldn't handle the constant negativity from Jim and Dale. That is what eventually led to Conrad being brought on. I will say it was not very long before the start of the podcast that the signs, though I did not recognize them at the time, of Jim's decline really started to show.

Not only does he claim that but he readily fellates himself about it for half the video because of it, he's not a genius for thinking this because how many times have people jumped on a genre bandwagon only to lose out a few years down the line?

Not even the games industry thought that they could all survive here. You ever wonder why a lot of these live service games started to slow down and it was really only the ones that were licensed and came out rather late to it or had long development cycles that are coming out these days? I can give you a look into those boardroom meetings. The earliest meetings went something along the lines of "There is only room for about three of these games, so all we need to do is make sure that we are the ones behind one or more of them. The best way we can do this is to make a lot of them and hope one of them catches on and covers the cost of all the others that failed. We can't afford to not try and get into this space, but it's going to be highly competitive and those who do not managed to get any of their live service games catching on are going to be in trouble, so let's make sure that we don't fail completely. If we're lucky, this will drive a few of our competitors to bankruptcy and we will be able to buy them out. Our competitors are thinking the same about us. How do we mitigate the risk?"

I was involved in several meetings over a couple of years that had that mentality. Everyone knew what the risk was, it was a big gamble with a limited amount of players that you would be able to harvest, and ultimately the goal was to be one of the three to six live service games that actually made it and would be able to produce long-term profits. As soon as it was clear that the market had reached saturation, we started to see a lot of these games internally have little changes to how they were going to be developed and monetized, those that weren't done were being shoved out the door very quickly in hopes that they would make back their cost of development and a small profit before slaughtering the project. Everyone knew how this was going to play out, everyone knew that there is only so much room for live service games to exist. It wasn't about making everything live service, it was about making sure you could ensure one of your live service games would be the one to make it and that your competitors did not.

A fair number of these games managed to achieve what I will call a perpetual trickling profit, and you see a lot of them have been adjusted in development scale to the point required to maintain that. Even then, everybody who understood the industry understood this was going to be a very short boom and would devastate everyone who lost this battle. Same thing with microtransactions.

Right now everybody is looking around trying to decide which one of the next big things this is going to be. From the meetings I have been in, it looks like there has been a reevaluation of how to make money in games, and other than the mass exodus coming up to mobile, from what I am seeing it looks like we are going to see a lot more people going in on full remakes, as well as releasing games with a free to play mode and charging for the higher to cost to develop game modes in them. An example of what this will look like is something like Halo Infinite or the more recent Call of Duty games with the Battle Royale mode being free. Then in a couple years we will all hear about how so many people lost trying to chase this trend. They all know that there will be losers. The goal isn't for everyone in the industry to win. The goal is to be on the winning team. Everyone knows they are taking a risk, but they know that the rewards have a chance to be quite great. Great enough that passing them up can't be permitted.

Its absolutely for his ego, he mentions at some point in the video about people calling him out for his shitty takes in his written reviews which makes sense why he'd turn around and try a spin "look how smart I was" narrative to deflect rightful criticism.

Jim, I'm pretty sure most people forget you did written reviews. You stopped that years ago.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Jim actually started doing written reviews again late last year, he got a lot of flak for relentlessly shitting on Sonic Frontiers (1.5/10) which was probably why it was included in his worst games list and he recently did a review of the Dead Space remake (5/10) which also had a lot of flak and probably why he did this video to try validate himself.