On March 16, Digital Homicide formally filed a lawsuit in Arizona District Court, accusing Sterling of “assault, libel, and slander” to the tune of US$10 million. The lawsuit was filed by Digital Homicide co-founder James Romine.
Digital Homicide claims Sterling, whose real name is James Stanton, has “falsely accused Digital Homicide and caused damage” to the company. According to court documents, the company is asking for US$2.26 million in direct product damage; US$4.3 million in emotional, reputational and financial distress; and $US5 million in punitive damage requests. That adds up to US$10.76 million, and it’s nothing to scoff at.
Co-founder Robert Romine told me the lawsuit has been in the works for roughly four months, and that Sterling crossed a line with “continued coverage and harassment of every single title we have ever posted”. (Just yesterday, Sterling posted a six-minute video tearing apart their new games.) Romine also said he recently received a package full of faeces in the mail, despite “multiple requests private and public to the individual [Sterling] to inform his subscriber base to stop harassing me”.
The drama began when Sterling published a 10-minute video of Digital Homicide’s first-person shooter Slaughtering Grounds in November 2014, dubbing it the “new ‘worst game of 2014’ contender” and a game where “the awfulness just doesn’t stop”.
Sterling had criticised the game for using generic art assets purchased online, which Digital Homicide defended as necessary from a production standpoint and part of the “cycle of cash flow that is the lifeblood of hardworking people in the indie community”. The developers described Sterling as a “leech” who profits “from the hardwork [sic] of other people” and said his criticism “reduces sales which in turn reduces money that can be used to purchase more indie development assets”. This impacts “the livelihood of many people with no risk or cost to yourself”.
In response to this criticism, Digital Homicide published two videos — both removed, though archived on Sterling’s channel — where the developers call Sterling “a fucking idiot” and accuse him of not playing the game correctly.
Besides $US10.76 million in damages, Digital Homicide also wants “apologies in place of every offending article and video for a period of no less than 5 years”. They also want “an apology video in the primary youtube location on [Sterling’s] channel front for a period of no less than 5 years”.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/03/angered-game-developer-sues-critic-jim-sterling-for-us10-million/
