Jim Sterling- witty games journalist or unprofessional troll?

Anytime i've heard him speak he comes of as a someone trying too hard to have opposite opinions to bait people into getting mad. Or maybe he just has weird taste in games and is ostracized for it. I'm leaning closer to the former though.

Not a fan. He's just a guy with a shtick. Yahtzee does the whole know it all prick thing much better and less annoyingly.

Once u get past his ramblings his arguments are very thoughtful.

She's pretty much the worst. lol I said she.

wouldnt he be a professional troll, since he gets paid to do it?

Well, he is right about Final Fantasy.

Never read his stuff or visit Destructoid, so i have no personal grudge against him. But i do enjoy when people take his opinions way too much to heart.

Jim sterling is teh pageview mastah

Needs more 3 sentence articles, that force you to "hit the jump"

@wickedsc3 said:

@JoeyRavn said:

@Mordukai said:

A witty unprofessional troll.

He gets paid to do it, so I guess we can safely call him a "professional".

Just because you get paid for something doesn't mean your a professional.

Yes he is very unprofessional, take the whole thing that happened with the Gears 3 review he did. He played the game and wrote the review in 1 day just so he could get it out when the embargo lifted. After reading that I decided his reviews are not credible at all nor is he professional. Then when his review gets a bunch of hate he writes a big long article trying to defend himself. He knew that his review caused a bunch of talk and so he tried to capitalize on it by keeping people talking and hitting the site about it.

I clearly meant "professional" in the sense of "he does this for a living, not as a hobby", not in the sense of "he adheres to the moral and quality standards his job requires".

I stopped going to Destructoid months ago because of him. It seems like a lot of others did too.

PS 1st post! :D

He's not witty and he's a really poor troll, so neither.

I like him.

@benpicko said:

@Evil_Alaska said:

People take video games way too fucking seriously. I'm glad Sterling doesn't.

@Mordukai said:

A witty unprofessional troll.

A bit of both. Minus the witty part. He isn't witty or funny, so I stopped reading. I've never understood the people that keep on reading and getting mad when he clearly enjoys baiting them, but getting mad on the internet is a valid pastime for many, I suppose.

@HandsomeDead said:

He's not witty and he's a really poor troll, so neither.

he's not a poor troll if he gets this much attention.

@Belmont_Shadow said:

@HandsomeDead said:

He's not witty and he's a really poor troll, so neither.

he's not a poor troll if he gets this much attention.

The people who fall for it are just really easy to troll.

Eh I like him. He says funny things and occasionally talks about video games so kind of what I read/listen to.

To me he's a witty game journalist with unprofessional troll tendencies.

I think he's pretty damn good when he's not pretending to shove action figures up his arse. Admittetly that happened only once but that's once too many.

I think he's a man paid to do a very specific job.

He's a loud-mouth writer too clever by half. More often than not his articles come off as nothing more than attempts to get a rise out of people. That's whatever, as you read a few and you quickly recognize his game, but it's the article where he tries to play a sympathy card that really annoy me.

Take his recent one about Shadow of the Colossus. Oh, poor Jim Sterling being ostracized for not agreeing with the general consensus.

@MrMatey72 said:

@benpicko said:

@Evil_Alaska said:

People take video games way too fucking seriously. I'm glad Sterling doesn't.

This; taking games too seriously is a bit of a joke I agree. However, I would say that Jim clearly does take games and, despite what he might say, his position far, far too seriously. Case in point, the Jimquisition- he rants on constantly about issues in games which most of us wouldn't give two shits about unless actively made aware of them and he uses this as a staging point to shit out a load of pointless abuse. The whole 'V for Vendetta scene/ thank God for me' was funny for like a second- now that he's made it a permanent fixture of the show he comes across as some sort of weird cult leader- again taking himself way too seriously; he's a guy who likes to play vidjya games not the next Karl Marx. I know you could easily put it all down to him just trying to be funny, but people often use humour as a way of covering up their own arrogance and his ‘humour’ is downright sick a lot of the time- if someone said what I quoted in RL people would think he was a paedophile. My point is, is that he was once pretty great; an uncompromising games reviewer who didn't take himself, his job or others too seriously. Once he realized that some of his more extreme/weird outbursts were what generated the most hits though, he decided to sell out and become a full-time internet troll. He's essentially perpetuating the 'gamer stereotype' (i.e. an obese, pasty, 4chan obsessed, self-entitled, angry male) to make a quick buck which is wrong on so many levels. He sucks all the airtime away from the other hard working members of the site, everyone always seems to have to play second fiddle to Jim. This is a shame because I LOVE the dtoid show and its presenters.

He's just a troll. Completely lacking in wit or insight. You could switch out his posts with any random 14yr old on the internet with none the wiser.

I used to like the guy, but DToid and it's audience have just let him get away with far too much rehashing of the same shit over and over again. When he did his series of satire articles they were funny to begin with, but then they got kind of played out, and the community called him out on it. He stopped, so credit where it's due there. But, as I said, they've let him get away with too much since. I feel like the community went waaay downhill since the exodus of staff in the first half of 2010. On the topic of this exodus, I feel like Jim himself tried to fill in the position of 'smart guy' that Anthony Burch created amongst that staff after the guy left, but Jim just isn't capable of filling it. More often than not he comes across as though he's just trying too hard. I'm certain he does take an interest in the topics he talks and writes about, but his 'antics' completely deprive him of any credibility he might have anyway. And his attitude is horrible. I don't remember exactly when or who, but he got into a 'debate' with a HL2 mod-maker regarding whether or not he's homophobic. When he next podcasted, he completed dismissed the other guy's points with some sarcastic bullshit, and never even attempted to address them.

Anyway, rant over.

Tl;dr He's shown talent before but just squanders it now.

Honest to a fault. People can't comprehend honesty when it slaps them in the face.

I like Jim. I always manage a chuckle when he writes an article or a review. He just acts like a human being, which is refreshing in a time when people think the word 'professional' holds the exact same meaning as robotic and opinion-less.

Jim does his job, and he openly lays the verbal smackdown on assholes who challenge him. I see no issue with that. I don't have to agree with him, but I can still love the work he does, and respect him for having balls like swinging coconuts.

He has strong opinions and he likes to share them, if you believe that's trolling then I think that word has lost its meaning.

I don't agree with everything he says, but I can say the same for anyone in this industry. However, he can be very entertaining.

@Claude You know what, I think he's a lot like me. He says what he thinks but he also goes out of his way to look like an ass while doing it.

He is a troll, but he's trolling people who take games too seriously, which is perfectly fine by me. Although when he's not being a total buffoon, he has sometimes has some insightful things to say regarding games, like his video against the demand for more realistic violence in games. I just think it's a bit of a shame that the Jimquisition has really been taken down a notch since he moved it over to The Escapist.

I wonder how metacritic takes his reviews as seriously as actual game coverage.  To know that Jim Sterling ultimately has some responsibility about whether or not you receive your bonus has got to be a miserable existence for developers.