Jim Sterling has been greylisted by Microsoft PR?

Didn't he get blacklisted by Konami a while back too? Anyways, I'm sure this will get sorted out now that the issue has been getting this kind of attention.

I think a lot of people are missing the fact that he is Reviews editor for the Escapist. When dealing with Embargos and other publisher non-sense it helps when they will speak directly to the editor and not around him to all the various writers.

Wouldn't this have something to do with his leaving his role at Destructoid? I assume that makes him less important as a game critic. I guess he still has some role with the Escapist?

He's kind of a clown so I can kind of understand.

Sterling says a lot of interesting and intelligent things but he also seems to say a lot of things for the sake of a punchline and a page impression too. If I worked for Sony, Microsoft or any of the pubs and devs I might be wary of journalists like him too. I would almost consider laying down a blanket rule that says to blacklist any journalist who does their work as a "character".

...except for Yahtzee, 'cause I think he's hilarious and I'd love to hear him verbally assassinate something I worked on.

I think gaming media/journalists/writers/whatever need to sit down and decide whether or not having a twitter account actually improves the quality of their work. From the outside, the only thing twitter appears to gain you is a bunch of bullshit drama between media and pr departments, media and developers, media and other media, developers and other developers..

How many positive facts do you gain on the average day on twitter? To what degree do you find yourself more informed, more knowledgeable, or better acquainted with factual information after spending an hour on twitter as opposed to other formats? Since when did pulling a bunch of 140 character responses from your feed constitute a meaningful, reader-oriented article?

I'm beginning to think sites like Escapist, Polygon, Dtoid, Giant Bomb too... they need to start pulling the plug.

You know what though, I bet stupid meaningless twitter drama in which everyone passive aggressively talks around each other and finds the sneakiest way of insulting each other actually draws more views than useful, factual information about games. The industry and the media have 'matured' to the point where instead of arguing about facts, they're fucking around with these pointless microaggressions like a bunch of gossipy old women in a WASPy country club.