Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

So, anyone checked out Jim Sterling's show on Escapist Magazine?

I have to admit, while I really did hate the guy in many of his articles, his videos make it abundantly clear that his massive ego is really just an act (he ends every video with "thank God for me" and asks viewers to do the same.)

All acts aside, though, he does bring up some legitimately good points. He does a great job of highlighting the problems with the game industry using compelling arguments that are easy to understand.

My favorite video of his so far is probably his latest one, where he talks about Ubisoft. It's not that different from his other videos, but the moment that sells it for me is at the end where he decides to forgo the whole "thank God for me" bit and proclaim that he is God.

Heh, I've seen posters convinced that Jim and Yahtzee are the cusp of a minsandrist, satanist cult.

See, the thing is, about half the human race has no screening filter for jokes. They're not your audience.

Jim and Yahtzee are both very funny so long as you either don't take them seriously or take everything with a massive chunk of salt, and both can be rather insightful when they decide to stop being trolls. Jim doesn't have something like Extra Punctuation to serve as his serious corner, but you can tell how serious he is by how much of an ass he's being.

Then again, I tend to give Jim a lot of benefit of doubt mainly because he's the only "professional" (i.e. recognized by The Other Wiki) reviewer that still treats the Dynasty Warriors franchise (and spin-offs/clones) fairly.

I think that Sterling's recent "egomaniacal dictator" gimmick is starting to wear thin and become really annoying. Even if I might agree with the point that he might be making, it's hard to listen to him talk about himself, or proclaim himself any number of highly minded epithets.

It's also hard for me to get behind Sterling when you know he's done things that might be seen as not very becoming of him, such as the Twitter upset involving Anna Anthropy.

His best would probably be The Beautiful Irony of PC Gaming. From what I recall, a lot of his reviews tend to be inconsistent (thus the "rate Mario Kart 7 a 5 for being derivative and give Modern Warfare 3 a 9.5" joke) and I am definitely no fan of them, but his video show does at least have some good points, like when he was going over copyright law the past few weeks.

I really like the Jimquisition, mostly because he does what Bob Chipman does, but does it right, i.e. not being a massive tool without an ounce of humility. I like how he makes his massive ego a joke, almost to the point of parody.

Oh Jim Sterling. Oh Jim Sterling! Oh Jim Sterling...Jim Sterling...

What can I say. Much like the other infamous guy in the Escapist (Bob, Ben, take your pick) , he can make many valid points, but god damn, he can he a bit of a cock sometimes. I do suppose that comes with his character, but at times, it can get a bit too overbearing.

edited 23rd Oct '12 2:08:11 AM by eternalNoob

I couldn't even bother to finish watching his first video, and haven't even tried to watch any of them since then. I have no need to watch some self-righteous egomaniac routine, especially when they try to make it their primary selling point.

I find the ego parts are at the beginning and end which are easily avoided or ignored. Sometimes I laugh at them. Jim makes a lot of well thought out points or so I've seen from the sixish vids I've watched. I enjoyed his "children" video which showcased Clementine as a character not as a plot device.

I feel I should say I don't particularly like Jim's style, I'm just able to ignore the rough edges and enjoy his commentary. I think he's better without adding the ego shtick.

edited 25th Oct '12 11:57:54 PM by babble

I've really enjoyed his stuff post December 2012.

My problem with Jim is that he is way too easily building up strawmen and then arguing in a way that also happens to condemn a large number of others who happened to vaguely resemble his strawman.

Examples include "The beautiful irony of PC gaming", which is not so much about what PC gamers generally believe (protip: most of them are fully aware of many amazing indie games, and cheap mods, and in fact present them as the pride of PC gaming), but about bad forum arguments. So why isn't it called "The Beautiful argument of the elitist forum troll"?

In "Dumbing down for the filthy casuals", he very effectively (and obviously) demonstrated why hating an optional easy mode in a game is stupid, too bad his target, the Dark Souls fandom, actually had pretty good and specific arguments for why that particular easy mode simply wouldn't work.

In "fake geek girls" he basically condemns everyone who ever used the titular phrase as a misogynist, whether it was as a description of commercial pandering, booth babes, or any specific individuals who did demonstrate blatant dishonesty.

In "Anita Sarkeesian: The monster gamers created", he is condemning gamers as a whole for Anita becoming infamous, instead of the random youtube troll who made the actual rape threat. Especially ironic, since it was not "gamers" who hyped up that random comment, but gaming press pundits like himself, who first hyped Anita, then pointed out the comments, then hyped up Anita's an the gaming community's reactions, so really, it should should honestly be called "Anita Sarkeesian: The monster Jim Sterling created".

Who the heck is Anita Sarkesian?

Look up "Feminist Frequency" and "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games"

Oh that person who did Kickstarter once

Yeah, Fem Freq has a topic in this very forum as well as a work page.

Also, I think Jim is hit and miss when it comes to serious issues in gaming. His latest video "Boob Wars and Dragon Crowns" isn't too bad, but as Ever9 mentioned, some of his worst videos are when he uses strawmen to make his arguments and ignores what people are actually saying.

Jim is at his best when he puts his Consumer Activist Hat on, because he neatly summarizes everything wrong with games as a business in a convenient location.

So for some reason I found his rant really annoying this week. Generally I'm totally with him when he goes on a tear about shit like the state of mobile gaming and the worst excesses of the free-to-play scheme, but this week… wasn't feeling it.

Maybe I'm lacking context, but it sounded like he was getting mad because businesspeople were getting together at a business event and talking about business.

Well, when the business was "let's deliberately design our games to be by-and-large unplayable or obstructive as Hell so we can milk our customers for as much money as possible", I'd be a little miffed too. I know that games are, at the end of the day, a business, and that food has to be put on the table, but it's annoying just how much the "we want to make money" side is having more influence than the "we want to make a fun game" side.

(EDIT: "Money has to be put on the table" isn't the idiom I was looking for.)

edited 25th Mar '14 9:48:11 PM by ShadowHog

For context, here is the video Jim posted this week. Also for context, he's talking about a panel at this year's Game Developers Conference that talks about "How to monetize teens," or something like that. I've heard that there are/were similar panels at the conference talking about the various aspects of monetization in general, but I don't know if he refers to that in this video.

here's a link to someone else's account on the panel that Jim was talking about.

Interestingly enough, the full title of this panel was "Monetizing Teens in a Safe and Legal Manner (Presented by Oink)," which may or may not make the implications worse.

edited 25th Mar '14 3:53:57 PM by Nettacki

Whales.

One does not refer to one's customers as a quarry animal, if they hope to maintain good PR.

the term Whale was actually used before by casinos.

the more you know.

If Jim had provided actual context and content about what was actually being discussed etc., I might've been more on-board. As it is, he only gave titles with zero context and proceeded to go on a self-righteous tirade. And with that livetweet there where every indication is that it was a fairly tame/boring panel about safety and ethical concerns, it just looks pretty stupid.

And I can't really feel the rage at "retention." I mean, if I make a game and the business model relies on keeping users playing and paying money, then a panel about "retaining" users would probably be relevant to my interests.

edited 26th Mar '14 9:00:23 AM by Pannic

Jim Sterling... Well. His insights on the gaming industry and culture are usually great, his reviews are crap, his voice and persona are unbelievably grating.

So Jimquisition and Zero Punctuation have just utterly slammed extremely controversial You Tuber Dark Syde Phil. And Phil is already getting pissy about it.

That also came shortly before slowbeef did a video mocking him, too.

edited 27th Mar '14 3:29:06 PM by Pannic