Jim was hit with a dmca claim (again) *Updated* the dev response

[Ark of the Covetor]

It's pathetic. It's unprofessional, and often times it's the developer themselves trying to shift the burden of quality on the critics. Producers who criticize there critics like the developers of Slaughtering Grounds, believe that they are entitled to praise or that if people don't like what they do, then they should just be quiet. Which is absolutely absurd when they then expect others to pay money for there product.

...It's similar to the idea that most school teachers are there because they couldn't achieve anything in their field of specialization. ...

You mean a near-total fiction usually peddled by people who were shite at school or had one teacher they didn't get along with and now feel the need to run down an entire profession - one vital to society mind - to sooth their own manchild-level self-esteem problems?

I couldn't agree more, people who try and paint critics as people who failed to be successful doing the thing they criticize are petty in exactly the same way as that.

 

[sanquin]

I took a look at the Kotaku article. It looks like he wasn't interesting in salvaging his dignity. Instead, it seems he wanted to take some kind of stand against Jim, hoping that if enough people did it, Jim wouldn't be able to keep doing these videos. He even admitted to Kotaku that he knew it was a BS claim. Still, as others have said, if you're going to try and sell a product, people should know if it's a crappy product. If Jim's videos help illuminate the crappiness of these products to consumers, than I stand by him, even if I think the quality of his Squirty Plays isn't that great. I just hope they don't end up making them look crappier than they actually are.

Thing is, Jim's Squirty Plays aren't even reviews. I mean, they're definitely used as such by a lot of viewers. But they're just him doing a video series of games that take his interest on steam. They're closer to blind let's plays than reviews. And it's the dev's fault for either releasing a product that isn't finished enough to show yet, or for releasing a crappy product. I'm glad we can find out if a game is crappy or not, before buying, these days. As I still remember how it was in the 90's, where every single game I bought was a gamble because official reviews in magazines and such were already giving very 'rose coloured' viewpoints back then.

 

[Lightknight]

Wait, Sterling had to disclose his address to these people? That's a non-trivial number of vague threats they keep throwing around.

<.< He did?

*Reads the Kotaku article*

Well, dang. That's kind of creepy. <.>

Hope they don't use that information to harass Jim after the video is back up. I don't think any Dev who has done this dance before has, so hopefully this one won't be the first.

Yeah, it's a terrible practice on Youtube's part to demand someone reveal their address.

I suppose the reason is to let the person have an address to serve Jim papers. Cease and Desists and all that. So, I see the reason behind it but it's quite a liability if it ever comes to anything. It'd be like a newspaper giving restaurant owners the home address of their reviewer just because a restaurant claimed "defamation of character" or something. Hopefully he can use a P.O. box or something.

 

[SweetShark]

It's pathetic. It's unprofessional, and often times it's the developer themselves trying to shift the burden of quality on the critics. Producers who criticize there critics like the developers of Slaughtering Grounds, believe that they are entitled to praise or that if people don't like what they do, then they should just be quiet. Which is absolutely absurd when they then expect others to pay money for there product.

Or they're just reminding us that most game critics are failed developers. It's similar to the idea that most school teachers are there because they couldn't achieve anything in their field of specialization. I wager these things are true about half the time.

PFFFTTT! :x

Jim ain't a failed game developer who became a games journalist.

He's a games journalist who became a successful voice actor.


;p

Hw will be also in the game "VA-11 HALL-A"

The above is the old design, because I couldn't find the new one.

Now I will read to answer OP.

 

[thoughtwrangler]

Jim Sterling did/does nothing wrong to these developers. Sorry, but just because you worked hard at something doesn't mean that the something you made deserves serious critique.

Most people think Mass Effect 3 was "terrible" and while reviled, it deserved the respect and regard that it was given. Slaughtering Grounds, does not. I'm sorry. It's not a game into which enough polish and effort was put in order to revile on the same regarded level as Mass Effect 3.

Put another way, if a multimillion-dollar game in a beloved franchise with highly polished game mechanics is talked about as though it's bear-feces in a jar, what makes [Random Tech Demo Erroneously Released as a For-Real Game] so much more special that it warrants better?

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Interesting to see people implying Jim might be a bully. This game was a product somebody wanted to sell. How do you think people who might have paid for this would have felt? In business you should leave your hurt feelings at the door, Jim was right to point out how bad this is and save people from potentially paying for an awful product.

 

[Lightknight]

Interesting to see people implying Jim might be a bully. This game was a product somebody wanted to sell. How do you think people who might have paid for this would have felt? In business you should leave your hurt feelings at the door, Jim was right to point out how bad this is and save people from potentially paying for an awful product.

While I don't think Jim is being a bully, you do have to kind of look at this from a perspective of scale.

Jim is basically a AAA quality reviewer. Him reviewing these games would be like a famous food reviewer going to a pit-stop burger joint to review it using the same criteria used to evaluate fine dining establishments.

It's not bad, necessarily, but it is a bit weird to see a higher profile person discussing a work that no one ever thought would be good.

On the other hand, it's perfectly reasonable to think that he's wading through this garbage to find the gems and figures he might as well not waste his time on the bad games he's playing and so just goes ahead and reviews them too.

In any event, not a bully. Just a strangely high profile reviewer stooping to take a look under the rug and commenting on what he finds.