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

[Kuritan Deplorable]

Has anyone played Stray Souls is it any good?

It looks pretty and that's about it. Every bit of gameplay and narrative I've seen is pretty fucking bad.

What I don't understand is why Jim is taking swings at it as if its being mass bought by people who he politically disagrees with. Nobody bought the damned thing, it moved maybe a thousand copies, which in the world of bad games is usually just streamers and the naïve about to experience their first "but it looked good in the marketing" moment. I'm dead certain the only reason Jim decided to review it at all is so he could get more excuses to rag on the creators opinions, because he's terminally online and mad about it.

I wonder if we could mail Jim a tophat with "Mad At The Internet" on it, would he actually wear it before realizing its reference?

 

[Oliver Onions]

That's the main thing you really notice about Jim imo, he's just such an unfortunate throwback, love it or hate it modern videogame criticism is more defined by 3 hour video essays on Dark Souls boss fights more than it is angry articles screaming 'This is the worst videogame EVER!', at least the former is a little bit more cerebral than the latter, so of course Jim completely fails when he tries to do it and reverts back to what he knows better no matter how shallow and outmoded it seems.

I don't really agree with this tbh, modern video game criticism is an extremely broad spectrum; much more so than it used to be. You have the turbo-autist deep dives from guys like Mandalore and Majuular, more traditional long-form reviews like GmanLives and Skill Up, retrospective series like Matt McMuscle's Wha Happun and Josh Strife Hayes Was It Any Good? and then the more digestible, slightly irreverent stuff like Zero Punctuation and Dunkview. Add to that more news-based/op-ed channels like Spawn Wave and Luke Stephens and there's pretty much something for everybody on YouTube nowadays as far as gaming news and reviews go.

The problem for Jim is he's just not entertaining any more. He absolutely could have a successful channel making videos ranting about games and the industry, but everything he posts now is so low-effort and so obviously phoned in nobody wants to watch it. I believe there is still a niche market for le angry video game man, but there is not a market for miserable fat man pretending to be angry (while also dressed as a woman).

 

[Chilson]

He absolutely could have a successful channel making videos ranting about games

Its not "could" its "did". HIS entire brand was nothing but that and it fucking worked. For a time HE was one of the "faces" of online video game reviews/commentary raking in millions of views.

The problem now is that HE hates video games, video game fans and most importantly hates that HE has to keep making video game related content. That hatred leaks into the content no matter how hard you try to hide it and it turns everyone off almost as much as looking at HIS disgusting troon appearance.

 

[KittyGremlin]

I believe there is still a niche market for le angry video game man, but there is not a market for miserable fat man pretending to be angry (while also dressed as a woman).

I would almost think it's in reverse. It's not funny anymore precisely because his anger against chud misogynist transphobe gamers is real now. He no longer writes skits that are funny, he keeps trying to hammer the same moral points over and over. His troonout made things worse because we need to take his fetish seriously too. The writing is so inherently self contradictory the only option a non-ideologically aligned watcher has is to laugh at him, not with him.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I would almost think it's in reverse. It's not funny anymore precisely because his anger against chud misogynist transphobe gamers is real now. He no longer writes skits that are funny, he keeps trying to hammer the same moral points over and over. His troonout made things worse because we need to take his fetish seriously too. The writing is so inherently self contradictory the only option a non-ideologically aligned watcher has is to laugh at him, not with him.

I kind of agree, but I don't think it's anger: I think it's misery. Jim seems utterly devoid of passion for everything except maybe his shitty wrestling, and the clock is rapidly running out on that hobby. He doesn't play video games any more and has made an absolute fortune, so the outrage about the industry and capitalism is purely performative now.

His disdain for anyone who doesn't indulge his LARP is probably genuine, but even that doesn't really come across as anger to me; more like a tantrum from a child not getting his way. I firmly believe Jim knows he's full of shit with all this trans crap, and you can't genuinely be angry at people for not endorsing the thing you yourself know is total nonsense.

 

[TATE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODE!!]

Except for two occasions specifically, I never watched Jimbo because when he first showed up I was already exhausted by internet angry manchildren. I remember the ads on the escapist being some street art looking shit of him holding a cup in his Nazi get up with "GET ANGRY" as the catchphrase. Hard pass.

The two videos I recall watching was him whining about some Batman redesign by Square being overly complicated (meh) and garbage games that can be found on Steam (even bigger meh), and neither short video at the time was worth sitting through an obnoxious minute long ad (sometimes of his own stupid show) just to get basic bitch generic gamer opinions.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

I kind of agree, but I don't think it's anger: I think it's misery. Jim seems utterly devoid of passion for everything except maybe his shitty wrestling, and the clock is rapidly running out on that hobby. He doesn't play video games any more and has made an absolute fortune, so the outrage about the industry and capitalism is purely performative now.

This sounds about right to me. Back in the day, Jim was super passionate about videogames. The Jimquisition was him showing off that love and passion and how angry it made him when they fucked up something he loved. Now, he just resents games for even existing, resents the industry for its every action, and resents his audience for needing to be told the same lesson over and over again and still not changing anything. Is it his audiences responsibility? Well when you drink the troonshine, you get a side serving of "If you're not the solution, you're the problem" to guide the rest of your life.

I feel like the last time I can recall Jim having a righteous, passionate anger was around 2018 or so with what 'They Did' to Dynasty Warriors. That's the last real review/content I remember watching and genuinely enjoying Jims anger, because he was angry at how badly they treated a thing he actually liked. Now he just shits on failed indie games because he doesn't like the creators politics.

 

[KittyGremlin]

I kind of agree, but I don't think it's anger: I think it's misery. Jim seems utterly devoid of passion for everything except maybe his shitty wrestling, and the clock is rapidly running out on that hobby. He doesn't play video games any more and has made an absolute fortune, so the outrage about the industry and capitalism is purely performative now.

His disdain for anyone who doesn't indulge his LARP is probably genuine, but even that doesn't really come across as anger to me; more like a tantrum from a child not getting his way. I firmly believe Jim knows he's full of shit with all this trans crap, and you can't genuinely be angry at people for not endorsing the thing you yourself know is total nonsense.

Misery, anger, lack of purpose, impotent rage. All part of the same shit bouquet.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I feel like the last time I can recall Jim having a righteous, passionate anger was around 2018 or so with what 'They Did' to Dynasty Warriors. That's the last real review/content I remember watching and genuinely enjoying Jims anger, because he was angry at how badly they treated a thing he actually liked. Now he just shits on failed indie games because he doesn't like the creators politics.

For me, it was this video where he goes over Square Enix's announcement for Marvel's Avengers lootboxes being purely cosmetic. I know it remains a contentious topic whether this is something worth of being upset about or not, but the part where Jim starts sarcastically applauding SE (timestamped below) is a perfect example of how you can be funny at the same time as pointing out something you genuinely think is a problem.

Watching the whole video has actually made me kind of sad because it reminded me of how entertaining Jim used to be. He's ranting about the same things as usual but you can hear in his voice that he's both passionate and having a good time while doing so.

Also note that video has 366k views despite not even being a JQ; modern Jimquisitions can barely manage a third of that.

 

[Blamo2000]

I'll be honest, Jim was barely watchable even before his castration. I watched him on the Escapist and later on Youtube, but he basically upped up the gross factor and just kept repeating the same 2-3 points.

I used to respect him, because his business model was rather fair and I agreed with his takes.

Now that he actually trooned out, he basically hurt his career, ended his bloodline and for a guy who complains about capitalism that much because an eternal slave of big pharma. The worst of all, he is still fat. Digital Homicide and Konami won.

As for his remaining userbase... is being a troon so normalised that they don't gross out instantly? He wasn't a pleasant specimen to begin with, now he is looking like a monster from a horror flick. And I can only imagine how much prominent the virtue signaling must be is in the content. The culture shifted so hard in the last ten years it's not even funny.

 

[Aaron Costello]

I don't think Jim is doing this in some grand plan to provoke another lawsuit and get another fifteen minutes of fame, I think he just enjoys punching down and shitting on things. With Domina as mentioned earlier in the thread the dev was clearly in the middle of some kind of mental breakdown, Stray Souls is in the almost the same position as Slaughtering Grounds was being a game no one knows exist with Jim only exposing the game to way more people than it ever would've.

The main difference between 2014 and now is that there isn't the same problem of obvious low effort asset flips shitting up Steam, Stray Souls isn't being held up and used as an example of whats going on at the moment. Its a very obviously bad game being punched down at by someone who enjoys being a miserable bastards so much he double dipped and talked about it twice.

The digital homicide videos and that videos series (steam green light garbage, I think is what it was) where he ""Critiques"" those asset flip games, is one of the things that turned me off him. Talking about game design and industry stuff to talking about ""asset flips"" and indie games... and that was all of his videos for like 6 months too! I know a lot of them were either made to get a reaction out of him or made to try and get quick cash, but some of them might have been passion projects made by a small team or a solo dev in an attempt to teach themselves game dev.

 

[Shotgun Badger]

The digital homicide videos and that videos series (steam green light garbage, I think is what it was) where he ""Critiques"" those asset flip games, is one of the things that turned me off him. Talking about game design and industry stuff to talking about ""asset flips"" and indie games... and that was all of his videos for like 6 months too! I know a lot of them were either made to get a reaction out of him or made to try and get quick cash, but some of them might have been passion projects made by a small team or a solo dev in an attempt to teach themselves game dev.

I've always had this opinion, while to some degree calling out lazy games that skirt the boundaries of plagiarism and theft with their flagrant reuse of assets has its place, the vast majority of this stuff was just detritus you get with people trying to make games for the first time where they aren't really doing anything wrong just because they aren't good. I much prefer if something like Steam is a public platform with loose standards for people to put their work on it, its not like zero-budget games existing on it really negatively effects users in a meaningful way and every now and again it leaves the door open for some diamond in the rough to break through and make a splash in a way I don't think would be possible if it was more heavily curated. Its not like I'd prefer if platforms like youtube or deviantart also started trying to implement restrictive quality control standards on their content (which they sometimes do and its fucking bullshit).

At the end of the day it felt a lot like, dare I say?, punching down which is something I thought that Jim and his cohort were very concerned about.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

I waited the entire time for him to mention how this is exactly the same way that reality shows used to operate and that in retrospective how scummy that was but he never did, he even got so close to it by called it a TV show with microtransactions.

 

[Harm]

Put it on as background noise and tuned it out until I heard this pedophile dogwhistle slipped into the song at the end. "Cummy" is a word used by pedophiles and people who engage in sexual age regression roleplay (aka simulated pedophilia between adults). It's much like "cunny" in that it's intended to sound innocent and even playful on its surface, but its true meaning of sexualizing minors is immediately evident to other pedophiles who recognize it.



Despite having an entire song and dance about how Jim Sterling wants to guzzle Hideo Kojima's "cummies," this video is currently marked as available and appropriate for ALL audiences. If a 5 year old wanted to watch this video on repeat, there is nothing stopping them. Marking a video as only suitable for adults is as simple as checking a box in the upload process. Pretty fucking disgusting.

 

[Oliver Onions]

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

• Jimquisition ('Fiscal Responsibility, Or A Study In Game Publisher Stupidity', 103k views)
• Jimquisition ('The Game Industry Hides How Bad The Really Bad Layoffs Are', 95k views)
• Jimquisition ('Microsoft Bought Activision And That's Terrible', 102k views)
• Jimquisition ('Creative Abandoned: Why Sonic Has So Many Bad Games', 97k views)
• Jimquisition ('Stray Souls: A Bad Game Made By Bad People', 106k views)

Subs Lost: 3k
Subs Left Til 700k: 68k
Patrons: 5,636 (-46)
Monthly Income: $9,828 (-$126)
Monthly Views: 701k (-114k)
Twitter Followers: -800

Spoiler: Notes

Sorry I'm late, but there's not much to say this month except LOOK HOW BAD JIM'S VIEWS ARE HOLY SHIT.

 

[TV's Adam West]

This makes me want to violently fedpost until Null gets a visit from the FBI.

 

[SiggerNlayer]

I just wanna throw out there that while this is gross, creepy and bizarre "cummy" is not a "well known pedophile dogwhistle" and is no where near being similar to "cunny". Chill before throwing around pedo accusations just for the sake of stirring the pot.

 

[Kendall Motor Oil]

I don't buy the pedo interpretation. It seems obvious he's trying to fit the original song. You'd have to be obsessed with pedophiles to interpret cummy as a cunny dogwhistle.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I agree it's a stretch to suggest noncing, but I still never want to hear Jim Sterling use the word 'cummies' for any reason, ever, for as long as I live.

 

[Namekian George Floyd]

idk nigga, I didn't know that the word "cummy" had pedophilic connotations to it. I feel like the only time I've ever heard it was in those old 4chan greentexts about a manchild saving up good boy points for mommy's tendies. Jim is a tranny so it wouldn't surprise me if he said something pro-pedo at some point but I think this shit is jumping the gun when he just wanted to play a goofy parody song.