If game critic and video-maker Jim Sterling has a nemesis, it’s game developer Digital Homicide. That name might not sound familiar, as they’re a small studio that has released a couple of games on Steam. But they may soon enter notoriety after this month’s unprecedented actions.

On March 16, Digital Homicide formally filed a lawsuit in Arizona District Court, accusing Sterling of “assault, libel, and slander” to the tune of $10 million. (The only reason “assault” is listed is because libel is, legally speaking, part of a broader category when filing a lawsuit. Ignore that.) 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 $2.26 million in direct product damage; $4.3 million in emotional, reputational, and financial distress; and $5 million in punitive damage requests. That adds up to $10.76 million, and it’s nothing to scoff at.

Digital Homicide is representing themselves in the lawsuit, and do not have an attorney.

 Co-founder Robert Romine told me the lawsuit’s 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 feces in the mail, despite “multiple requests private and public to the individual [Sterling] to inform his subscriber base to stop harassing me.”

Romine said he’s been in discussions with “a premium online defamation law firm as they agree we have a case and are seeking funds to acquire their services.” Thus, the crowdfunding.

Besides a humorous tweet that may or may not reference the lawsuit, Sterling hasn’t said much.

“It would be unwise to say much at this time,” he told me. “All I can tell you is that I am dealing with this situation and that I am fully confident about it.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Sterling butting heads with a developer, but it’s the first time he’s been hit with a lawsuit over it.

The tumultuous relationship between Sterling and Digital Homicide is not new. A number of Sterling’s YouTube videos involve him playing through random games found on Steam, and many of them aren’t very good. This is part of Sterling’s bread-and-butter: making fun of bad games.

(It’s is not all he does, obviously. Sterling’s weekly Jimquisition video rants cover a number of other industry topics.)

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.” The game did not get much attention outside of Sterling’s videos; in fact, one of Sterling’s critical videos is the second Google result for Slaughtering Grounds and the first result when you do a search on YouTube.

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Read the rest of the article here  (it's pretty long): http://kotaku.com/angered-game-developer-sues-game-critic-jim-sterling-fo-1765484317

For some more background, this is one of the Jim Sterling's videos on The Slaughtering Grounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6s0Wpn1zmU

I can't even be bothered going into how stupid all this is, they aren't worth the time.

i just laugh my ass off every time i hear Digital Homicide going after Jim these guy's don't know when to quit.

Oh dear, people are allowed to not like your stuff. Especially when it is shit. I'm also pretty sure freedom of speech even in a country like the US let's you say you don't like things...

Doesn't Jim live in the UK too? Meaning surely no court order would be able to enforce this anyway?

he's from the UK but he lives in the US i believe

Agreed. And they've been doing it for well, well over a year. Besides, it's not like they're the first dev to get butthurt over Sterling and start persecuting him. The amount of crap he has had to put up with is inspirational.

Jim Sterling's coverage has probably helped more than hurt them.

If you're going to make utter garbage like Slaughtering Grounds, don't throw a childish hissy fit when it's called out as such.

These constant attempts by shitty devs to silence criticism of their games are as sad as they are concerning.

Even ignoring the fact that what Jim is doing is perfectly legal, the dev dude's representing himself without a lawyer. Even if the case doesn't get thrown out immediately, which it probably will, there's no way he can win without a lawyer. He'll be lucky is Jim doesn't counter-sue for such a garbage case.

I don't know anything about this particular case but Jim "piss, fuck, cum" Sterling is someone I have zero respect for. Some of his personal vendettas have been so incredibly childish that he comes across as an arrogant asshole who uses shock value and insults to stay relevant while claiming that he has no responsibility to be accurate or factual because he's only a blogger.

I'm not saying I hope he loses, though, not if this is just about someone being angry over criticism. That would be a bad precedent. However, on a personal level, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

As an interesting subtext, Sterling always makes a big deal about not being a journalist, thus freeing him from any kind of journalistic integrity. I wonder if that means he can't use "journalism" as a defense?