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

[Scarlett Johansson]

Steampunk trend has gone from a trend to...oversaturation and people misunderstanding what it is, especially with fashion.

 

[PixarsTedKennedy]

Steampunk trend has gone from a trend to...oversaturation and people misunderstanding what it is, especially with fashion.

This. I liked the initial exposure I had to it in the 90s with games like Arcanum and table top games but man it was just fat chick's in corsets and degenerate guys who would probably say things like that age of consent laws need to be done away with.

 

[Toolbox]

This has always been my thoughts too. People would tell me he was a hero and shit for bringing attention to scams with his greenlight videos, but you'd have to be a fucking retard to not see 99% of those games for what they were. And all of his constant bitching about AAA was stuff that was very apparent as well

Anyone that thought Jim was a hero for making fun of asset flippers is retarded. It was just funny to see the duo scramble to try and make up excuses for their scam being unraveled.

 

[Motataio]

This has always been my thoughts too. People would tell me he was a hero and shit for bringing attention to scams with his greenlight videos, but you'd have to be a fucking retard to not see 99% of those games for what they were. And all of his constant bitching about AAA was stuff that was very apparent as well

Regarding his AAA complaints, it's probably because he was, at some point, one of the few "gaming journalists" with some pull to actually talk about these things without shoehorning too much identity politics into the discussion (hell, he even openly admitted to liking fanservice in an era in which some journos were almost calling sexualization the work of Satan). Also, he was actually entertaining once, so those who were disillusioned with AAA games AND with games journalism in general probably saw him as some sort of comfort food. He was always crazy, mind you - who could forget that insane semen selfie? -, but it didn't affect his videos and writing too much.

The he went batshit insane, completely diluting the things that made his content actually noteworthy. As I mentioned, the seedlings of all that craziness were already there, but hindsight is 20/20 and, for all his faults, Jim was once professional enough to keep his private life and his "journalism" somewhat separate.

 

[Radiaux]

I used to watch and enjoy Jim's content and then it got stale. Then the site re-design happened which I did not like, followed by the re-branding which I REALLY did not like.
I don't care he came out trans and is transitioning. It is irrelevant to the content she makes. That's not why I unsubbed. I unsubbed because the content got stale, it was always the same thing, and I started to see a descent into madness and just constant pushing of I'm trans so that's why people are leaving.

No Jim, I don't like your content now because it sucks and it grew stale. You used to have quality content and then you let it slip.

 

[Avomacado]

I'd rather watch him do commentary on episodes of Coronation Street than put up with his usual beige content.

His videos are like drinking dirty dish water. Probably won't die doing it, but I'd never want to, neither.

If he's normalising the whole 'Stephanie' not-quite-re-brand, could he first at least acknowledge people have been calling him a useless fat cunt way before his latest pet name for himself.

nah my parents designed the gifted program and wrote a few books including a phonetics textbook and thats all searchable online

@Strait McCool maybe you'd do better if you read the urban dictionary info on this website? or is that not reality for you

Link me. Idk what you're talking about.

i dont even think you know her and you've posted no proof of literally anything and if you love her and talk shit about her u got some bad romance shit going on

What proof do you want? You think I just stumbled on this website or your thread? Check your ego lol. Believe me the only person that's talking about you in Canada is her.

 

[Open Window Maniac]

No matter how many subscribers he loses or how many gender special labels Jim applies to himself, he will always be fat.

 

[Philier]

This has always been my thoughts too. People would tell me he was a hero and shit for bringing attention to scams with his greenlight videos, but you'd have to be a fucking retard to not see 99% of those games for what they were. And all of his constant bitching about AAA was stuff that was very apparent as well

Those games were making next to nothing, if anything at all. He basically made up the whole shit. He probably ended up helping sell more of those shitty games than anyone.

 

[GoPro]

Worth noting, the sole reason he was doing that shit was to try to provoke additional Digital Homicide incidents and also try to orchestrate a moral panic against Steam for its perceived lack of quality control. Something that, ideally, he'd solve by putting people like himself and his associates in charge, by his own admission.

Never fucking forget that Sterling has unironically argued that ecchi games like SK don't have a right to a platform and should not be on Steam. Because it offends his morality, you see.

This shit has always been about his own power and his own ego.

He is defending corporate censorship or deplatforming too. Australian Target and Kmart stopped selling GTA V after wokies on twitter were crying about it. Wokies were bitching and screaming cyber rape about people humping and teabagging others in GTA V multiplayer. That's it.

Jim did not acknowledged woke mob's role in that incident. Then he dismisses the precedent things like that set. I do not like or care about GTA V, but incidents like this set precedent for other offensive materials being banned from stores, and later their creators from payment processors. I wonder if his reaction would be the same if people got some other game banned because it has trans characters in it. That was back in 2014.

Regarding his AAA complaints, it's probably because he was, at some point, one of the few "gaming journalists" with some pull to actually talk about these things without shoehorning too much identity politics into the discussion (hell, he even openly admitted to liking fanservice in an era in which some journos were almost calling sexualization the work of Satan). Also, he was actually entertaining once, so those who were disillusioned with AAA games AND with games journalism in general probably saw him as some sort of comfort food. He was always crazy, mind you - who could forget that insane semen selfie? -, but it didn't affect his videos and writing too much.

The he went batshit insane, completely diluting the things that made his content actually noteworthy. As I mentioned, the seedlings of all that craziness were already there, but hindsight is 20/20 and, for all his faults, Jim was once professional enough to keep his private life and his "journalism" somewhat separate.

He always have gone after easy and acceptable targets from what I remember. Jim's admission to liking fanservice did not mean much when he was perfectly fine with woke neopuritans running wild and trying to get games and people banned over it. He toed the party line during the Mass Effect 3's controversy, defended Zoe Quinn and Sarkesian, and did many other things of that ilk. Jim was never as much of a customer advocate as his fans made him out to be.

 

[Kulee Baba]

ill be honest i never watched this fat retard until his descent into lunacy started, and I still dont aside from the 900k cope video which made me come here because it was so hilariously pathetic - 800k coping video soon! (I hope).

nearly a decade ago i took 30 seconds out of a single day to watch him after watching a yahtzee video and my only thought was 'why would anyone watch this fat annoying man yell? he isnt even funny' and then went back to yahtzee videos.

but now he's a spiraling troon retard and is much more entertaining to watch than he ever was before. he's just a different kind of funny than yahtzee.

I never liked Jim Sterling. Because I think the lower class British accent sounds utterly disgusting.

I don't know much about Brits but I know Jim doesn't qualify as a Chav who essentially are British Wiggers. But his accent surely denotes his low class lifestyle. His hometown Erith comes off as rather lousy.

 

[RainwaterDrop]

Never fucking forget that Sterling has unironically argued that ecchi games like SK don't have a right to a platform and should not be on Steam. Because it offends his morality, you see.

This shit has always been about his own power and his own ego.

Bloated fucker thinks the World revolves around his gut. If he had any semblance of coherence, he would be in favor of it not only because it gives more choices to the customer, but it also helps in keeping developers employed. Not to mention the sexuality angle coming from a freak that makes his content around what makes his dick hard is really fucking hypocritical!

I don't like Sports games, I find most of them like Fifa honestly boring to play. But it's fine since, see, I simply don't play them and I know that people who like those games want them to be available on Steam, but clearly I'm not a great, enlightened thinker like the entitled fucker that hates anyone who doesn't wear a dress and every business owner that wants to make some money from his product instead of making a "moral" living from making videos around his crossdressing habits. What an asshole!

He is defending corporate censorship or deplatforming too. Australian Target and Kmart stopped selling GTA V after wokies were twitter was crying about it. Wokies were bitching and screaming cyber rape about people humping and teabagging others in GTA V multiplayer. That's it.

Jim did not acknowledged woke mob's role in that incident. Then he dismisses the precedent things like that set. I do not like or care about GTA V, but incidents like this set precedent for other offensive materials being banned from stores, and later their creators from payment processors. I wonder if his reaction would be the same if people got some other game banned because it has trans characters in it. That was back in 2014.

Jim is the sort of fucker to have a very selective worldview without a sparkle of coherence thrown in. Not as bad as MovieBob and other lunatics, but he isn't too far either. It isn't a problem for someone to have a general belief and open some reasonable exceptions, I'm in for free speech but I think ISIS magazines shouldn't be in circulation, for example, because they are directly affiliated with a terrorist group. This isn't an incoherent belief. What is an incoherent belief is what Jim does, being in favor of corporate censorship and deplatforming when he feels like it, he probably has no issue with a shitshow like ValiDate having some clearly hateful shit in it but wants JK Rowling to be deplatformed over much less inflammatory statements. If one has an issue or not with something depending on who said it, it's a stupid belief and a display of incoherence. Jim is the sort of fucker that has no problem with a boot on his face as long as it's one with a trans flag in it, nevermind how good it would be for no boots at all to be there!

 

[ThisHill2DieOn]

The only Jim material I ever watched was his digital homicide fiasco and some of the videos he'd make about asset flips and zero-effort greenlight/kickstarter garbage. Since that kind of dried up I never had a reason to go back long before he ever decided wigs were in fashion.

That was such a weird time. JS and TB would both rail about how shit AAA gaming is and how they're ripping people off, that there needs to be more indie games, then scream bloody murder that Steam wasn't gatekeeping their precious video game garden well enough. A common phrase bandied about was that Greenlight was "cluttering" Steam's storefront. It always seemed like such a "eat my cake and have it too" argument.

TB and JS always reminded me of an airsoft gun, while someone like Jeff Gerstmann was an actual gun. Sure, they may look and even feel the same, have many of the same features and actions, but one is the real deal and the other is not.

 

[Motataio]

He always have gone after easy and acceptable targets from what I remember. Jim's admission to liking fanservice did not mean much when he was perfectly fine with woke neopuritans running wild and trying to get games and people banned over it. He toed the party line during the Mass Effect 3's controversy, defended Zoe Quinn and Sarkesian, and did many other things of that ilk. Jim was never as much of a customer advocate as his fans made him out to be.

Yep, I never denied that he went after easy, acceptable targets. His content was never deep or original, but the point is that it said things people agreed with while also (mostly) avoiding some hot-button issues that were actively poisoning gaming discourse because of the way they were being addressed; hence my assertion that he was seen as "comfort food". During this era, many (if not most) major outlets were more concerned with how many women were in any particular game and would sometimes outright chastise players for voicing reasonable concerns over anti-consumer practices (it was often painted as "harassing developers", with no nuance, solely because some schizos - out of thousands of complainers - sent some barely-legible death threats over it).

As for your point about neopuritans, remember that, around that time, he also spoused some surprisingly Gamergate-esque views, but only saw that sort of rationale as acceptable as long as it wasn't directed against his circle of "journalist" friends (not that he was ever this honest about it). I can't see into his head, so I won't try to speculate on whether he was conflicted, trying to play all sides or just a massive hypocrite, but even the autists at Kotaku In Action would sometimes show him some respect (seriously, check their threads from 2014-2016; for every individual raging at him for being a SJW, there's at least one other nerd saying that he is, at least, a genuine consumer advocate). Once again, hindsight is 20/20: it's quite easy to look back on his behavior and see all the warning signs, but back then people didn't have so much evidence, and even some of those seeing the writing on the wall were still willing to watch his videos because he didn't let too much of this drama seep into his work.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

I learned back in the late 90s that anyone who's into steam punk was a degenerate. I remember seeing a thumbnail of him with that hat a long time ago and not clicking it on that fact alone. Turns out, I was right not to.

Harvey Beaks was a charming little kids show, and you know it was onto something because it had like three episodes about how crap steampunk is.

 

[ThisHill2DieOn]

Yep, I never denied that he went after easy, acceptable targets. His content was never deep or original, but the point is that it said things people agreed with while also (mostly) avoiding some hot-button issues that were actively poisoning gaming discourse because of the way they were being addressed; hence my assertion that he was seen as "comfort food". During this era, many (if not most) major outlets were more concerned with how many women were in any particular game and would sometimes outright chastise players for voicing reasonable concerns over anti-consumer practices (it was often painted as "harassing developers", with no nuance, solely because some schizos - out of thousands of complainers - sent some barely-legible death threats over it).

Jim and TB never gave an iota of a fuck about consumer advocacy. It was mirage they cloaked themselves in. I had a really long back and forth with TB on some game article's comment section about him raging on Unreal Engine 3 and framerate locks. (remember TB's Framerate Police that flagged tons of visual novels and spreadsheet-based sport sims?) I tried explaining that UE3 does not lock physics to framerate automatically and that tying physics to framerate isn't a de facto "lazy" move, as well as how DLC rollouts solidified and retained developer talent for medium-creating positions. A lot of people really don't fucking get it because they either weren't around at the time or they simply didn't know how the industry worked. Back in the Wolf3D days and even going to the Halo days, 75% to 90% of a studio's staff would be lucky if they were retained after a title shipped. Remember CoD: MW? Infinity Ward fired over 70% of its over 1,000-person staff after that game released. Today, that churn is nearly gone. You can argue the benefits and detriments of this effect on consumers, but it is undoubtedly a better atmosphere for developers that *can* benefit consumers, too. But TB couldn't see that. It was all just "lazy devs" and "do better" nonsense from a guy that knew nearly nothing about industry dynamics and processes.

 

[Motataio]

Jim and TB never gave an iota of a fuck about consumer advocacy. It was mirage they cloaked themselves in. I had a really long back and forth with TB on some game article's comment section about him raging on Unreal Engine 3 and framerate locks. (remember TB's Framerate Police that flagged tons of visual novels and spreadsheet-based sport sims?) I tried explaining that UE3 does not lock physics to framerate automatically and that tying physics to framerate isn't a de facto "lazy" move, as well as how DLC rollouts solidified and retained developer talent for medium-creating positions. A lot of people really don't fucking get it because they either weren't around at the time or they simply didn't know how the industry worked. Back in the Wolf3D days and even going to the Halo days, 75% to 90% of a studio's staff would be lucky if they were retained after a title shipped. Remember CoD: MW? Infinity Ward fired over 70% of its over 1,000-person staff after that game released. Today, that churn is nearly gone. You can argue the benefits and detriments of this effect on consumers, but it is undoubtedly a better atmosphere for developers that *can* benefit consumers, too. But TB couldn't see that. It was all just "lazy devs" and "do better" nonsense from a guy that knew nearly nothing about industry dynamics and processes.

TB is another issue entirely. I never really watched a single video of his, so I'm not qualified to speak on his positions, but everything I did learn about the man strongly suggested he wasn't someone worthy of my time; what you just said solidifies that notion.

Sterling probably just cloaked himself in a mirage, sure enough, but my point is that at the time he offered a type of discourse that was in dire supply among gaming "journalists" with any sort of pull. His time in Destructoid also gave him at least some knowledge on how people on the internet perceived and consumed gaming discourse, so he was able to shape himself in a way that benefited his popularity; I genuinely can't think of a single other journo that was appreciated by both Kotaku AND Kotaku In Action followers, even if plenty of the latter actively hated the man.

It's sad, when you think about it: at one time, JS was genuinely on his way to becoming a respected pundit, despite his antics and ridiculous persona. All he had to do was manage his career intelligently. He had the tools for it, too; his content was never brilliant, but some of the pieces from his Destructoid days strongly suggest he had at least SOME potential. His review of Deadly Premonition, for instance: it reads like something utterly mundane nowadays, but when it came out many people saw it as a revelation, since the idea of analyzing a game as more than the sum of its parts was shocking to those who only consumed the crap mainstream games media was regurgitating.

Now he is just a fat man wearing a ridiculous outfit and screaming stupid shit into the void. Sure enough, he's always been a fat man in a ridiculous outfit, but before people had genuine reasons to at least suspect there was more to him than that.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

This. I liked the initial exposure I had to it in the 90s with games like Arcanum and table top games but man it was just fat chick's in corsets and degenerate guys who would probably say things like that age of consent laws need to be done away with.

Yeah like I don't mind shit like Bioshock or American McGee's Alice and what have you. Even Professor Layton and shit like Princess Principal. But I see people arguing that all of Tim Burton's filmography is exclusively steampunk which............lmao.

Jim was essentially a combo of Matt Lucas meets Jim Broadbent's Moulin Rouge character.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

When he sperged out and boycotted The Escapist, around 2014 I think

I thought he left around (any maybe because) of GamerGate? So that would be 2016, but I might be wrong. Then again when he did go independent his entire gimmick was "I'm not like those mainsteam journos that are beholden to advertisers and corporate interest", so it seemed like he was courting the GG crowd without explicitly being pro-GG.

 

[Wesley Willis]

In the latest Jimquisition video Mr. Sterling starts out with a tangent where he explains his reasoning for leaving the Escapist in 2014.

Apparently The Escapist chose not to publish a review of his of the then latest Assassin's Creed game Unity due to their parent company Defy Media having sponsorship opportunities with Ubisoft they didn't want to risk.

https://forums.escapistmagazine.com/threads/jim-sterling-sheds-light-on-the-escapists-previous-parent-company.610/

He left in 2014. This was long before the shitshow.

 

[Cyclonus]

Why the fuck is Total Biscuit included in this thread anyway? I don't know anything about him other than he's dead but if he was a lolcow why didn't he get his own thread?