The very first episode of Down the Rabbit Hole focuses on a two-man developer studio known as "Digital Homicide Studios" and their conflicts with various critics, most notably with a certain James Stephanie Sterling.
The video starts with Fredrik narrating there was recently a bundle of five games on Steam that was on sale for about a dollar. This may have looked good on the surface, but the games were of abysmal quality and had many problems. These problems include rudimentary gameplay, recycled assets, basic A.I. and lack of any balance. To add to this, the 30% of players who enjoyed the games were actually happy about the valuable Steam Trading Cards that came with the games which could be sold on the market towards credit for other games. He then reveals that this bundle is the work of Digital Homicide Studios, a two-man developer team composed of two brothers who asset flip their games.
Tropes that apply to this episode
- Artificial Stupidity: Games "created" by Digital Homicide Studios are full of this trope, with in-game enemies having no other higher brain function than in Fredrik's words "attempting to fuse their model" with the player's.
- Can't Take Criticism: The Romine Brothers are the first ever example of this trope in the whole series. They started a feud with Jim Sterling after the latter did a video lambasting Digital Homicide's game The Slaughtering Grounds and Robert Romine had a debate with him which was essentially him just attacking Jim and shouting at him. This eventually escalated to them later suing Sterling for ten million dollars.
- The Cameo: The video sample of the "absurdist and strange experience" is a bewildered Vinny Vinesauce playing Le Fantabulous Game.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: It's the very first episode, so it's to be expected.
- Fredrik lacks his signature catchphrase, "but this would not last".
- The video is only 16 minutes long, which is downright miniscule compared to later videos like Deep Blue and WingsOfRedemption (both of which are 2+ hours long).
- Fredrik makes his displeasure of the Romine Brothers somewhat clear (calling them "delusional" in the video description), while his later videos are 100% objective and unbiased.
- A Fool for a Client: James Romine didn't hire a lawyer in his lawsuit against Jim Sterling, compiled his own evidence, and wrote his own documents for submittal to the court. It didn't do him any favors. Sterling averted this by getting their own legal counsel immediately after being served with the lawsuit.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: The Romine brother's penchant for filing these over any slight perceived slight proved to be their career's undoing. They attempted to sue Jim Sterling for a negative review of one of their games, only for their lawsuit to get thrown out with prejudice. They also tried to sue over 100 Steam users for leaving negative reviews and comments of their games, which led to Valve permanently closing down their account and purging all their games due to blatant Anti-Consumerist behavior.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The Romine Brothers' responses to Jim Sterling are absolutely riddled with this. They seem to be unable to grasp the difference between "your" and "you're".
- Shout-Out: He says that The Romine Brothers reacting to Jim Sterling's reaction to their reaction video to his review of their game "puts Christopher Nolan's Inception to shame".
