pokoko said:
Destructoid used to be my gaming home a few years ago. After awhile, it became obvious to me that that Sterling was just a tabloid writer who depended on sensationalism for his "internet fame". Everything was a rant, often with little regard for facts, often with little or poor sourcing. When people would point out his mistakes, he'd then rant about gamers, along with the excuse that he was just a blogger so he didn't have to worry that much about accuracy. While I do agree that we shouldn't be calling anyone in the gaming media a "journalist" without anything to back that up, I completely disagree with the idea that a writer on a major website has no responsiblity to their readers to be as factually correct as possible. I remember when he wrote a rant about the Vita (I think it was called the NGP then) being a ripoff of the Nintendo DS because it was going to have "two touchscreens". His source was some obscure blog, but if you went to the real source linked from that, which had the patent information for the console, it was perfectly clear that it did NOT have two touchscreens. Seriously, how can you not check your information better than that? I don't think he ever fixed the article. Stuff like that is why I have zero faith in anything he says unless it's confirmed elsewhere. Besides that, his reviews would almost always mention cum and piss. Why? I can think of no other reason than to be controversial. That's tabloid writing. |
Don't remember that NGP post, so I can't comment on that. All I can say is that there definitely have been a few instances where Jim accepted that he was wrong about stuff, (like when he changed his mind about the whole Mass Effect 3 ending debate, or that time he apologized for potentially misunderstaning something about Tomodachi Life) and I also think he has changed as a person. Jim himself has said that he was sometimes kind of a not-so-nice person a few years ago.
Personally, I've come to the opinion that he's a very trustworthy guy, especially when it comes to reviewing games. He can have very strong opinions on things, but is also able to explain why he likes or dislikes something in great detail, which is a sign of a good reviewer, I think.
Now to the point of him being controversial: I remember an episode of podtoid where Jim said that his "controversial" reviews (FF XIII, or Vanquish, come to mind) didn't even get any more views/clicks than his uncontroversial ones, so it was never his intention to actually be controversial. Especially now that he's independent, page-views are something he really doesn't have to care for anymore. Oh, and the language he uses is simply his sense of humor, nothing else.
Just my two cents :)
