Jim Sterling in court.

[Elwes]

Another interesting resource someone on reddit pointed out is the Arizon Court Calendar.

Link : http://www2.azd.uscourts.gov/azd/callive.nsf/searchresults/$SearchForm?SearchView

You can search for "John J Tuchi" in order to get a view of the judge's schedule for the upcoming week.
(Spoiler: Romine v. Stanton isn't on there yet).

But you can also search for "Romine" or "Stanton" too, I guess.

"Reply to response to motion." That's a mouthful.

Dealing with a system as rigid as the courts has to be painful for anyone without a lawyer.
I must admit I'm terrible posting anything. As soon as I hit submit on forums, I'm immediately thinking of ways to edit or improve the thing I just posted. Dealing with the courts, I'd be worse than he's being.

I can only imagine the clerks getting new paperwork from James Romine and going "nahh, no point reading it... let's wait for the updated version he'll be sending in next week".

There's a small part of me now that's wondering whether James Romine is gaming this system too. Putting in huge amounts of paperwork and then updating/re-submitting them, knowing that they'll need to reviewed by Jim Sterling's lawyer. In effect, making the case as expensive as possible for Jim. I don't think he is, but weirder things have happened.

 

[Fsyco]

There's a small part of me now that's wondering whether James Romine is gaming this system too. Putting in huge amounts of paperwork and then updating/re-submitting them, knowing that they'll need to reviewed by Jim Sterling's lawyer. In effect, making the case as expensive as possible for Jim.

Maybe? I'd wager that he's just indecisive/impulsive and has no idea what the hell he's doing. Look at the way he started copying the stuff that Jim's lawyers were doing.

Besides, Romine is not in a position where he can engage in a legal siege and win. Romine couldn't afford a real lawyer (or no lawyer would take his case), and has only recently just made back the money (via GoFundMe) from initially filing the lawsuit (assuming he didn't donate to his own campaign to encourage others). Jim has a noticeably steadier income via Patreon, and if his funds dip too low, he can always plead with his fans and he'll get a big uptick in donations. Imagine the ending to Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, with Jim as Mario, his backers as everyone in the world, and Romine as The Shadow Queen.

Not that it couldn't be Romine's plan. I wouldn't put it past him to try to turn this into a war of attrition, but I seriously doubt it will work. He might have the worldview that he, in fact, has more money than Jim, which would explain the attrition tactic.

EDIT (more of an addendum, really): Stalling tactics are typically what the defendant would use, as I understand it. Romine, as plaintiff, would want to get to discovery and then root through all of Jim's shit. Maybe he doesn't know that, though.

 

[DoPo]

These are basically just strategy guides for mid-90s online games.

Somewhere in the ballpark but I'd personally not call them strategy guides. Well, judging from the descriptions, at least - the book titles are pretty much "Playing [genre] on the Internet". That's literally the title of two of them, the last one is called "The Complete Internet Gamer" which seems like a variation of the theme. Seeing as these all been written in 1995-1996, they seem like introduction to this magical int-urn-et thing along with how to use it to play some games. Well, OK - it seems like the MUD book does have high reviews (three of them. Which is also the total amount of reviews it has), so perhaps there is more to it, but overall, it seems more geared to getting you into the games than making whoever already plays them better.

Anybody feel like buying a copy and seeing if he's as bad a writer as he is a game dev?

*shrug* Actually, as I said somewhere earlier in this thread, I don't consider him to be a bad game dev. He (and his brother) have shown to have proficiency with RAD which I do respect. It's just that they don't really finish the games - if they just add polish, their games would be...not brilliant but certainly not terrible, either - just around average, which is fine for a game.

 

[Elwes]

I don't consider him to be a bad game dev.

I tend to agree.

From what little I've seen, he's created a lot of varied styles of games and seems to have the knowledge and background to create better games than he's already done. Most people, including a lot of developers couldn't do that.

But sadly, when most of the money is paid up front - there's little incentive to do it any other way. Especially if you can hide behind newly created steam accounts. Underhanded, maybe. Illegal, seeming not.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

It is wrong that my mouth is salivating at the idea of three books 'written' by these fuckers?!

 

[Fsyco]

*shrug* Actually, as I said somewhere earlier in this thread, I don't consider him to be a bad game dev. He (and his brother) have shown to have proficiency with RAD which I do respect. It's just that they don't really finish the games - if they just add polish, their games would be...not brilliant but certainly not terrible, either - just around average, which is fine for a game.

Except they don't.
Ride to Hell: Retribution could have been a fun, average-ish open world game if they'd not very obviously run out of time or money, but in the state that it's currently in, it should never have been sold to the public. DigiHom don't even have the excuse of publisher deadlines; they just crank out garbage. They've been cranking out garbage for over a year now. and haven't really shown much improvement.

I've got no idea what RAD is, but from my perspective as a consumer, none of these things that DigiHom have made are worth time or money. From my point of view, and from the point of view of many others, putting out almost exclusively bad games makes you a bad developer. Or am I missing something?

From what little I've seen, he's created a lot of varied styles of games and seems to have the knowledge and background to create better games than he's already done. Most people, including a lot of developers couldn't do that.

But sadly, when most of the money is paid up front - there's little incentive to do it any other way. Especially if you can hide behind newly created steam accounts. Underhanded, maybe. Illegal, seeming not.

Unlike say, Rare (back in the day), their games in different styles/genres aren't particularly good. They seem like they're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, and in the 'interview' with Jim that Robert did, I got the distinct impression that they don't have any passion for making games.

They have the potential to make better games, sure, but they don't seem to have any interest in doing that, and I'd rather judge them based on what they are rather than what they hypothetically could be.

SNIP

It is wrong that my mouth is salivating at the idea of three books 'written' by these fuckers?!

Considering that someone else did most of the writing, probably. Although considering that these books are about how to play some online games from the 90s, they're probably not worth picking up. Song of Ice and Fire it ain't.

 

[DoPo]

I've got no idea what RAD is

Ah, sorry - RAD stands for Rapid Application Development and it's a software development methodology that favours (as the name suggests) very fast turn around. RAD pretty much relies on using already existing tools[footnote]very often commercial off the shelf (COTS) products that have would be altered just enough for purpose. Less often libraries and other kinds of software packages are employed - these are discouraged, as it would require more coding work to bring together a finished product and more coding work = more time.[/footnote] to speed up the process.

Digital Homicide absolutely have been churning out a lot of games and that, to me, is impressive by itself. I'd certainly need way more time to produce something even equal to any of their games than they would to produce two of them.

Are the games bad? Well, the one that even Jim liked was actually cool and I'd say decent, however, on the whole - yes, their games are bad. They would be leaning towards "proof of concept" than actual games. Are the games fun or enjoyable? The ones I've seen aren't. However, is it because a lack of skill on the developers' part? I don't think it is. If anything, their ability to create them so fast does demonstrate skill. As I said, they don't really finish the games, so ultimately, I'd very much agree that what they produce isn't fit as a game that should be sold as a commercial product. This is not really helped by the fact that Digital Homicide seem to have a horrible attitude.

I can respect the familiarity they've shown with the tools they use and their willingness to use it. They don't use it for good, true, but they do seem to possess it. There are other indie developers who can't even seem to code themselves out of a paper bag.

 

[Fsyco]

Are the games bad? Well, the one that even Jim liked was actually cool and I'd say decent, however, on the whole - yes, their games are bad. They would be leaning towards "proof of concept" than actual games. Are the games fun or enjoyable? The ones I've seen aren't. However, is it because a lack of skill on the developers' part? I don't think it is. If anything, their ability to create them so fast does demonstrate skill. As I said, they don't really finish the games, so ultimately, I'd very much agree that what they produce isn't fit as a game that should be sold as a commercial product. This is not really helped by the fact that Digital Homicide seem to have a horrible attitude.

I can respect the familiarity they've shown with the tools they use and their willingness to use it. They don't use it for good, true, but they do seem to possess it. There are other indie developers who can't even seem to code themselves out of a paper bag.

They might have some nifty coding skills, but I still don't think that makes them good developers. Knowing how to edit footage isn't the same thing as knowing how to make a feature-length film. It's certainly important skill to have, but without other requisite skills (writing, shot composition, directing actors) you won't be able to make a good movie. The Romines have coding skills, but very little skill for anything else a game might need, like writing, level design, artistic direction, or player training.

I'd say that it's lack of skill as game designers, rather than a lack of skill as coders. Maybe they should start developing mobile apps or something that requires less creative vision.

 

[DoPo]

The Romines have coding skills, but very little skill for anything else a game might need, like writing, level design, artistic direction, or player training.

I'd say that it's lack of skill as game designers, rather than a lack of skill as coders.

That's exactly the distinction I am making. They have developer skills but that's completely different from what's required to make a game. A butcher in a supermarket and a serial killer could both be skilled with a knife, but their occupations aren't necessarily interchangeable.

 

[GregerFisk]

*shrug* Actually, as I said somewhere earlier in this thread, I don't consider him to be a bad game dev. He (and his brother) have shown to have proficiency with RAD which I do respect. It's just that they don't really finish the games - if they just add polish, their games would be...not brilliant but certainly not terrible, either - just around average, which is fine for a game.

They don't create any of the assets themselves, and with really basic programming skills you could probably make any Digital Homicide game by just copy-pasting code from various tutorials. You can't really polish a game when you don't know how all the code works.

 

[Elwes]

They have the potential to make better games, sure, but they don't seem to have any interest in doing that [...]

Quite true. They have an interest in making money.
And until people like Jim Sterling started to highlight their "minimal effort/maximum profit" approach, obfuscated by varied trading names - they were making a respectable amount of it.

It may sound like I'm trying to defend James Romine. But only to the extent of pointing out he's not the boggy man. He's one example amongst many. An experienced developer with a family. He's gotten defensive after being attacked (that's human nature) and seemingly has a casual disregard for the differences between illegal, immoral and amoral.

I'm guessing his point of view would be something along the lines of "I'm not doing anything illegal, yet you, your fans and a bucket load of people who never even used to know I existed are making my life hell and making my future look pretty damned bleak.". Okay, that ignores a bunch of stuff that he lost the plot by doing - but again, I can imagine how that may have seemed like the right thing to do, from a specifically skewed viewpoint.

But at whatever point the court case ends, regardless of the outcome, he's one guy and he doesn't matter. It's been one court case and it barely matters. Steam will still have greenlight and early access, and there will still be a bunch of people abusing the system because there's more profits in launching bad games that are never going to get finished.

The problem isn't that James Romine is a poor developer, it's that the current Steam systems rewards him more for making lots of bad games than a few good ones. Fixing James Romine doesn't fix the problem. Hell, he could walk out of court and launch a new Zombie FPS as Omni-Terran-Gaming using assets he already owns by the end of the same day and as long as he used different fonts and a different Steam account ID nobody had connected him to - nobody would be any the wiser.

 

[DoPo]

*shrug* Actually, as I said somewhere earlier in this thread, I don't consider him to be a bad game dev. He (and his brother) have shown to have proficiency with RAD which I do respect. It's just that they don't really finish the games - if they just add polish, their games would be...not brilliant but certainly not terrible, either - just around average, which is fine for a game.

They don't create any of the assets themselves, and with really basic programming skills you could probably make any Digital Homicide game by just copy-pasting code from various tutorials. You can't really polish a game when you don't know how all the code works.

Yes, the essence of RAD is that you take whatever you can that's already available, keeping any actual coding to a minimum. And Digital Homicide seem to be using Unity a lot which has a lot of tools already built in so you don't even have to write that much code. The code you would write (if needed) tends to be fairly minimal anyway.

So, yes - Digital Homicide are a shining example of how RAD is supposed to work - they take Unity, which is feature rich and can produce decent games, then they get ready made assets and combine them together to produce games very quickly.

Again, their games may not be great (or even average) but a certain familiarity with the tools is required to produce them that fast. Dungeons of Kragmor did show that they can, if they want, produce something that's not terribly and unfinished, therefore, they don't seem to be complete amateurs.

 

[Fsyco]

My SNIPples explode with delight.

I feel like the Greenlight thing and this lawsuit are sort of unrelated. Jim and DH may never have butted heads if Greenlight weren't in the miserable state it currently is in, but I don't think that fixing Greenlight would solve the underlying issue. If DH were a mobile game developer, or only released their stuff on itch.io because Steam implemented better quality control, they'd still find someone to butt heads with because they can't take criticism and lash out when anyone threatens their fragile egos.

But I feel like I've already banged on that particular drum plenty already in this thread.

 

[Elwes]

If DH were a mobile game developer, or only released their stuff on itch.io because Steam implemented better quality control, they'd still find someone to butt heads with because they can't take criticism and lash out when anyone threatens their fragile egos.

Fair point.

But I feel like I've already banged on that particular drum plenty already in this thread.

Aye, me too. Back to focusing on trial updates.

 

[Fsyco]

Aye, me too. Back to focusing on trial updates.

Speaking of those, do you know if someone has the latest court document? I'm interested in seeing how Jim's lawyer responds.

Also we've not actually gone to trial yet, as I understand. This is all pre-trial stuff to determine whether there will be a trial.

 

[Fsyco]

"ORDER: IT IS ORDERED denying as moot Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Exceed Length of Motion to Amend Complaint (Doc.17 )."

SUCK IT, ROMINE!

But seriously. That was pretty awesome. I bet the poor guy must be foaming at the mouth. It also looks like he filed something else. Specifically, a motion for "Leave to File Supplemental Memorandum in Support of Motion/ Amended Motion in Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Original Complaint". I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what that means. Sounds like he just wants to further argue about Jim's motion to dismiss.

 

[bossfight1]

I can't decipher the stuff on PacerMonitor, but it seems like Romine is stalling.

Honestly, I'm surprised there's been ANY progress in this case - I'd assumed that any lawyer or judge worth their salt would learn the details of the claim, then just start laughing, non-stop.

 

[Fsyco]

I can't decipher the stuff on PacerMonitor, but it seems like Romine is stalling.

Honestly, I'm surprised there's been ANY progress in this case - I'd assumed that any lawyer or judge worth their salt would learn the details of the claim, then just start laughing, non-stop.

Federal judges are pretty busy people. If you look at the court schedule for that district, Judge Tuchi has much more important cases to deal with. I imagine he has neither the time nor the inclination to do some digging on his own; the entire point of his job is to have other people present evidence to him. It's also my understanding that lawsuits aren't typically thrown out outright unless it's very obviously a waste of time, like the woman who tried to sue P. Diddy for $1 trillion, alleging that he caused 9/11.

I don't think Romine is stalling so much as he's desperately trying to make the motion to dismiss go away. He's the plaintiff and he has less money; what he wants to do is make this go as fast as possible so he can get relief for his damages and then go home. If he had more money, stalling tactics might work since he could try to pressure Jim into a settlement. Then again, he does seem a bit delusional, so he might think he does, in fact, have more money than Jim.

 

[Reed Spacer]

I can't decipher the stuff on PacerMonitor, but it seems like Romine is stalling.

Honestly, I'm surprised there's been ANY progress in this case - I'd assumed that any lawyer or judge worth their salt would learn the details of the claim, then just start laughing, non-stop.

Federal judges are pretty busy people. If you look at the court schedule for that district, Judge Tuchi has much more important cases to deal with. I imagine he has neither the time nor the inclination to do some digging on his own; the entire point of his job is to have other people present evidence to him. It's also my understanding that lawsuits aren't typically thrown out outright unless it's very obviously a waste of time, like the woman who tried to sue P. Diddy for $1 trillion, alleging that he caused 9/11.

I don't think Romine is stalling so much as he's desperately trying to make the motion to dismiss go away. He's the plaintiff and he has less money; what he wants to do is make this go as fast as possible so he can get relief for his damages and then go home. If he had more money, stalling tactics might work since he could try to pressure Jim into a settlement. Then again, he does seem a bit delusional, so he might think he does, in fact, have more money than Jim.

I's like he wants to see how much more painful he can make his suicide.

I've changed my mind: I want Sterling to ream this guy with a white-hot poker when this is done.

I want people to start openly laughing when someone mentions Romine's name.

 

[Elwes]

I's like he wants to see how much more painful he can make his suicide.
I've changed my mind: I want Sterling to ream this guy with a white-hot poker when this is done.
I want people to start openly laughing when someone mentions Romine's name.

He's a human being and a seemingly troubled one at that. I hope you don't want any of those things for him.

I can't decipher the stuff on PacerMonitor, but it seems like Romine is stalling.

My gut feeling is that he isn't stalling. The thought goes through my head occasionally, but as Fsyco pointed out earlier [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.935964-Jim-Sterling-in-court?page=11#23645234] in this thread when I was thinking out loud, there are more effective ways of delaying and raising the costs.

More likely he just really, really, really, really, really wants to get his point across. Unfortunately for him, he's not a lawyer and keeps getting the paperwork wrong. Or he gets the paperwork right, but thinks of something else he really, really, really, really wanted to say - then files the wrong paperwork asking to change it. Or perhaps he's reading some of the comments other people are writing, belittling his complaint/evidence and trying to "fix it" before the judge sees it.

I am somewhat interested in why the judge ruled "IT IS ORDERED denying as moot Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Exceed Length of Motion to Amend Complaint (Doc.17 )". It's the "as moot" that grabbed my attention. I think it's going to be that Doc 11 was a request to submit an updated complaint, not the actual updated complaint. So until the court rules on whether it's going to allow Mr Romine to submit the update, he doesn't need to worry about whether it's too long or not.

To anyone looking at the pacermonitor site : https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/10890330/Romine_v_Stanton

My interpretation of the history regarding this individual decision seems to be :

• 
  [li](doc 1) : James Romine filed his complaint.[/li]
  [li](doc 9) : James Romine updated his complaint.[/li]
  [li](doc 10): The judge threw out the updated complain (#9) due to some technical court reasons.[/li]
  [li](doc 11): James Romine requested that he be allowed to submit an updated complaint (copy of it attached).[/li]
  [li](doc 14): Jim Sterling's lawyer commented on doc #11.[/li]
  [li](doc 17): James Romine requests that the court allow doc #11 be longer than usual, after the fact.[/li]
  [li](doc 26): The judge rules that doc #17 is moot.[/li]

Most of the other elements of the docket are the back-and-forth arising out of Jim Sterling's lawyers requesting (doc #12) to dismiss the case entirely for one of three reasons. Some of which is again James Romine filing stuff, then asking to amend it and/or asking for it to be allow to be longer than usual court submissions.

From what little I know, the court clerks are handling the majority of things so far - they're there to filter the paperwork so that judge only needs to look at enough to make a ruling on a point of law.