Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

He was second only to Yahtzee at the Escapist, so it's odd that he's leaving.

^^According to patreon page, apparently he has come to dislike add revenue or something?

Yeah, I just read the Patreon page.

It makes sense, I suppose. Jim so far made his living kicking sand in the faces of the AAA game industry, so if the ad-revenue scheme made that harder to do, it would make sense for Jim to get his paycheck elsewhere.

I just hope that people are actually willing to pay him money for content they used to get for free.

One less reason for me to go to the Escapist, I guess. On the other hand, I guess this mean I will get to see his video in HD more often.

Apparently there is already 1367 willing to give him $5,701.31. That is nice. I wonder how this compare with what he used to make. And how much will keep being patrons after a few months.

I am seeing many Internet celebrities migrating to Patreon lately. I hope this ultimately prove to be a self sustaining business model. Everyone gets to enjoy the content while those who can effort can support the artist. Is still need to set up my pay pall account correctly, but I hope I will join the supporters soon. I regret not being able to support as many people as I want.

hmm… can't say i'm happy about this. Jim's 'comic' arrogance is best keep check working in a team environment. Most web celebrities that go solo have had the quality of their work drop.

I know the ad-supported model sucks, but I think he's jumping the gun a bit if he's only leaving for the because of the risk of corporate pressure. Maybe the noose is tighter then it looks behind the scenes then he is letting on.

edited 15th Nov '14 4:19:24 PM by joeyjojo

I know he's had... issues with some of his bosses at the Escapist recently.

Specifically over a thing some of those bosses support and he doesn't. A thing I don't think we're allowed to talk about.

Ah.

Sounds like his bosses are turning up the heart then. He's just knows better to start publically slagging them off it while he still works for them.

edited 15th Nov '14 4:44:25 PM by joeyjojo

Is Jim actually arrogant, though? I can't tell. Never seem him outside his persona. It often the character on screen is not at all similar to the actual person behind them. Nostalgia Critic, for example, is an abrasive jerk. Doug Walker seems to be a mostly mildly mannered man.

Btw, do you know any examples of web celebrities who went solo and had their quality drop? Honest question, I just don't know many who made that jump. The only ones who I can think of are Extra Credits, but their quality is as good as ever (if not improving).

edited 15th Nov '14 4:54:31 PM by Heatth

^For some reason, fans like to believe that every major change is for worse

This didn't come as a huge shock to me, mostly because of the way that the tone of his videos seem to have been leaning as of late.

Although he did take the milestone off the Patreon, he has technically hit what he originally set out to hit, which is $6,000 or more. The question of course becomes whether or not he can get more, and whether he'll sustain that margin.

I agree Jim Stirling's 'I am the new Messiah' Shtick is an clearly act. The problem is acting like an opinionated asshole online walks a fine line to being an opinionated asshole online. This is doubly true when you're working for yourself.

I don't normally follow You Tube stars actually, no I can't think of any, now that you mention it.

The underwhelming careers of solo artists certainly is the norm in the music world however. Not to mention kickstarted game devs who leave major companies to form independent studios but never do more than a few pieces of concept.

I'm probably sounding like a doubting Thomas this stage. Jim Sterling is a levelheaded man despite my concerns so I'm cautiously optimistic about him. But even the most diligent and talented of workers tend to flounder without the structure, stability and support of the work environment

edited 16th Nov '14 5:34:04 AM by joeyjojo

Eh, but he only acts like that ins his shows, no? Look at him in in his Patreon announcement video. He is pretty much another person. He is being really humble and composed. I don't get the vibe he needs support to keep himself on check.

You talk about musicians and game devs who fail when working solo, but Jim is neither. I am not sure the same standards can apply. A lot of vloggers and Internet video show guys work alone with no problem. Hell, I wonder how much influence the Escapist even had on Jim's content. Aside the obvious stability support, were they really a big difference in the show?

Yeah, I don't see Jim Sterling's over-blown persona presenting him with any more problems in his solo career than Doug Walker's as the Nostalgia Critic, and the latter became so successful as to be able to not only make a living doing his videos, but to turn it into a company with paid employees.

Going solo is going to be hard work and there is no guarantee of success, but it is by no means a death sentence.

edited 16th Nov '14 7:46:16 AM by TobiasDrake

Dam, I wish I could find that video when he start telling people at a convention to worship him like an God and then cackles manically like madmen drunken power

The difference between Jim Sterling and other vloggers like the nostalgia critic is Jim's videos supposed to be about actual issues in the industry which he caring about.

It's easy to remain to be humorously arrogant about something when you're not emotionally invested, but it is a lot harder to draw that line when you're dealing with issues actually somewhat close to your heart.

Again I'm not saying he's gonna turn to shit now. Far from it. But there's no guarantees he's going to be able to continue his usually high quality of work post escapist either.

It's not reasonable to expect it would be, After all he has a personal life like anyone else and not like he's got a steady job still depended on it.

Huh. Did Jim just directly reference Tvtropes?

So yeah, on the topic itself: pretty standard and obvious, but I suppose that someone has to pick the low-hanging fruit.

edited 17th Nov '14 9:01:23 AM by Kayeka

He most certainly did. No other reason to place a "hero" in that phrase.

Anyway, yeah, nothing special in this episode. I've already have heard it to death elsewhere. But this is one topic that must be beaten to death while is still fresh, so no complaints. Gamers need to be critical to this sort of bullshit, so that we can call developers out every time they try to pull this on us.

Jim talks about how Sonic managed a return to its usual form after a few games that strayed from the traditional ways of Sonic games, by being actually good.

This must be the first time I heard someone praise Nintendo for sticking to their winning formulas.

But yeah, that's basically the thing, isn't it? Sega keeps redesigning Sonic from the ground up, and the games turn into a bloated mess as a result. So maybe they should take a page from Nintendo's book and just find a formula that makes for a fun game and refine it.

It's definitely a problem I've had with the franchise since Sonic Heroes at least. Starting with that game Sonic Team insists every single game in the franchise has to have a half-baked hook to it, said hook taking precedence over all else, making the franchise one of the least consistent in the history of gaming. (You could even make good arguments that the problem started even earlier with Sonic Adventure or even Sonic 3D Blast, although I enjoyed both of those games - Heroes was the first point where I really didn't, and the poorly-implemented team mechanics were a major part of that.)

It didn't help when characters started outstaying their welcome, either.

For example, Shadow the Hedgehog was a great character in Sonic Adventure 2. He had a complete story arc from beginning to end, a tragic backstory, a valuable role as the mystery and intrigue of the plot centered around him, and a fantastic conclusion that ended on a genuinely heart-wrenching Heroic Sacrifice.

Then he came back, and promptly had absolutely nothing to do because his story was already complete. He hung around out of popularity, but his continued presence was never effectively justified. The writers just wound up slotting him into the role of an edgy guy that runs into Sonic every now and then and causes friction because he doesn't like him that much.

Problem is, that's Knuckles's role. So what's Knuckles supposed to do now that Shadow's stealing his spotlight? Knuckles winds up getting reshuffled into being Sonic's faithful buddy who is loyal and helps his friend out whenever he's in need.

But then THAT is Tails's role, so now Tails has to split his screentime with Knuckles, and ultimately all three characters - Shadow, Knuckles, and Tails - are the lesser for Shadow being shoehorned into plots that didn't need him.

Yeah, despite bearing his name in my screenname, I only really, really liked Shadow in SA2, where he had a fulfilling redemption arc fittingly capped off with him dying. By undoing his death with Heroes onward, he just was kinda there, acting so over-the-top angsty and "cool" that it'd be a great parody if I wasn't certain Sonic Team was trying to be 100% serious. It's almost impossible to take the guy seriously ever since he got his own game where he goes around shooting guns at everything.

And Knuckles, yeesh. I swear the last time he even made mention of Angel Island or the Master Emerald was an off-hand remark in Heroes in one of the forest/jungle stages. Some guardian he is! Flanderization hit him something fierce.

edited 25th Nov '14 9:18:27 AM by ShadowHog

I wonder if the root cause of the problem is.. Well... Sonic has always been somewhat of a gimmick.

His conception in essence was to be the cooler, edgier counterpart to the more dumpy and loveable Mario. He was given a gimmick - his speed - and his personality is essentially a whole bunch of 90s flippancy and "EXTREME" rebellious attitude to make him look hip and cool to a younger audience - and dated fast.The difference is in the earlier games they generally stuck to formula.

Then the 3D leap happened.

While the adventure games are generally regarded as good (though flawed), things started falling apart thereafter. Sega began pumping out game after game trying to dice up a formula that didn't need dicing, adding more pointless annoying characters that didn't need to be there, shoehorning existing characters where they didn't need to be and rehauling them (Shadow essentially becoming Sonic 2.0 with his post Adventure 2 appearances being redesigned with brooding anti hero edginess to reflect what Early 00's though was cool) and trying way to hard to insert a gimmick into a franchise that was built on gimmick.

I wish that Sega would just stick to one version of their gimmick to do well.

So there's a website.

That's neat.

And he's already put some game reviews up. The latest one being the review of This War of Mine.