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Breath of The Wild has enraptured fans and critics alike in the week since its launch. Touted as one of the greatest open world games in a decade, the most awesome Zelda since Ocarina of Time, and the most excellent video game to come out in recent memory.

Flawless and perfection are the adjectives that echo in everyone's words that talk about this newest iteration of Zelda. But not everyone has been echoing the same sentiment, and one man, in particular, is paying pretty dearly for his opinion.

Jim Sterling, known for his no-nonsense and polarizing views on the gaming industry, has taken fire for seemingly being responsible for Breath of The Wilds drop from 98 to 97 on Metacritic after publishing his review giving the game a 7/10. (Boy that sure looks familiar.)

“At its absolute best, Breath of the Wild offers some of the most absorbing experiences a Zelda game ever has.

“Unfortunately, it makes you work harder for it than you should, buried as it is under a pile of small but constant irritations that collaborate to form a thick crust of frustration around a delectable center.

“Breath of the Wild is a delightful adventure, one that tries its utmost to be as big a pain in the arse as possible.”

In the hours since publishing his review, Sterlings website has gone down and is currently inaccessible at the time of this writing. He has also received numerous public death threats and even has shared straw polls demanding he be hanged for his opinion.

Truly, I wish I could say I understood what all the critics were raving about in their onslaught of 10/10 reviews, but I don’t. I see too many things getting in the way of the brilliance, too much repetitive busywork and full-on dick moves for me to say this is even close to my favorite Zelda game, much less in the top five.

Close, but no Triforce.

Silencing criticism with DDoS's and hate speech is an unfortunate and unnecessary consequence of modern internet media. No one should be silenced for their opinion as everyone has a right to their views.

What does our community make of this recent news? How do you all feel about what happened to Sterling?

 

[duffmmann]

Wow people are dumb. The DDOSing people are the dumbest part for sure, but also when it comes to Jim Sterling, I often get the opinion that he does things just to be a contrarian. Like it feels to me that his 7 rating isn't so much the grade he truly feels it deserves, and is instead just a score that he knows will catch people's attention and get people talking. Another person giving the game a 9 to 10 is just gonna be lost in the wind, if you go low or even medium for such a game, and people will take notice. I really do think that there was at least a part of him that took great pleasure in all the attention (and by extension probably more patreon pledgers) that the whole Digital Homicide fiasco brought him. Now does any of that justify getting DDOSd? No, of course not, I just feel like a story like this illustrates a lot of dumb behaviors.

 

[ihaveahax]

the whole ddos and "clickbait" things are useless. Jim does not run ads on his site so he doesn't care about getting clicks on his content, or where the content is being read.

he still liked the game, you know? just not as much as other reviewers. 7/10 doesn't mean shit. if that ruins your enjoyment with the game then I think there's something wrong with you.

I did read the review myself and I think it's fair and well written, even if I don't agree with some of the parts like weapon durability (to a point) and the towers. please tell me how he did this to be spiteful of Nintendo/Zelda/whatever.

 

[DeslotlCL]

So the nintendrones are now giving a guy death threats just because he gave a 7/10 to their god sent gift?

How sad, how sad and pathetic. When did the nintendo community got so toxic? AAAaah, but let's trash on ps4 and xbox one, we are original and have more exclusives. Daddy nintendo loves us. All hail nintendo.

 

[duffmmann]

the whole ddos and "clickbait" things are useless. Jim does not run ads on his site so he doesn't care about getting clicks on his content, or where the content is being read.

he still liked the game, you know? just not as much as other reviewers. 7/10 doesn't mean shit. if that ruins your enjoyment with the game then I think there's something wrong with you.

I did read the review myself and I think it's fair and well written, even if I don't agree with some of the parts like weapon durability (to a point) and the towers. please tell me how he did this to be spiteful of Nintendo/Zelda/whatever.

Jim makes money from his patreon supporters. How does one get more patreon supporters? By extending their audience. How does one expand their audience? You get yourself more attention. How do you get more attention? You do something different that makes you stand out in some way. Giving a game that's getting universal praise a lower review is a great way of standing out in the field, as is getting a developer to sue you over nothing more than the fact that you review and play games online (which obviously wasn't his goal, but I have no doubt that the whole Digital Homicide thing led to him receiving many more Patreon supporters, which could be what made him realize that the more he was out in the zeitgeist, the more money he'd ultimately make). I could be wrong, but Jim has a certain attitude about himself that has led me to believe that he's not always as genuine about the things he's talking about as he might have you believe. Again, none of that justifies him getting DDOSd, but I'm also not convinced that the 7 rating he gave the game is truly the rating he feels it deserves. Frankly I really don't care what he or metacritic gave it, but I am genuinely a little bit skeptical of him and some of the things he says/does.

 

[CathyRina]

I find it more outrageous that people gave this game a 10/10 while it suffers from the weapon fragility system and frame rate dips, which are more common in TV mode on the switch.

7/10 is still a good number. I don't get why games nowadays need to have masterpiece worthy scores or else people think they're bad or niche.

 

[duffmmann]

I find it more outrageous that people gave this game a 10/10 while it suffers from the weapon fragility system and frame rate dips, which are more common in TV mode on the switch.

7/10 is still a good number. I don't get why games nowadays need to have masterpiece worthy scores or else people think they're bad or niche.

Frame drops on the Switch have actually been linked to a wifi issue. Turn off the Wifi and you should notice next to no more frame drops in the Switch version. In the meantime, Nintendo is working on a patch to fix this issue.

Source: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20..._could_be_why_your_games_keep_dropping_frames

I can verify that after a few hours with the wifi off, I haven't noticed the frame drops like I had so it would seem that is the actual real source of the issue.

 

[digipimp75]

Is it any wonder why gamers are painted as hostile, sad little basement-dwellers? I'm so sick of these f*****g manbabies and their inability to cope with differing opinions.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Frame drops on the Switch have actually been linked to a wifi issue. Turn off the Wifi and you should notice next to no more frame drops in the Switch version. In the meantime, Nintendo is working on a patch to fix this issue.

Source: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20..._could_be_why_your_games_keep_dropping_frames

I can verify that after a few hours with the wifi off, I haven't noticed the frame drops like I had so it would seem that is the actual real source of the issue.

Not only that, but Shin'en made a statement that there's a flaw in the firmware that's causing a drain of GPU resources, which for their game results in fluctuating between 900p and 1080p in single-player where it should be a full 1080p.

 

[ihaveahax]

Jim makes money from his patreon supporters. How does one get more patreon supporters? By extending their audience. How does one expand their audience? You get yourself more attention. How do you get more attention? You do something different that makes you stand out in some way. Giving a game that's getting universal praise a lower review is a great way of standing out in the field, as is getting a developer to sue you over nothing more than the fact that you review and play games online (which obviously wasn't his goal, but I have no doubt that the whole Digital Homicide thing led to him receiving many more Patreon supporters, which could be what made him realize that the more he was out in the zeitgeist, the more money he'd ultimately make). I could be wrong, but Jim has a certain attitude about himself that has led me to believe that he's not always as genuine about the things he's talking about as he might have you believe. Again, none of that justifies him getting DDOSd, but I'm also not convinced that the 7 rating he gave the game is truly the rating he feels it deserves. Frankly I really don't care what he or metacritic gave it, but I am genuinely a little bit skeptical of him and some of the things he says/does.

I've been following Jim for maybe two years now and I do believe he is honest about what he does. more because he's on Patreon so he can say what he wants without some "corporate shadow" over him.

I also don't think he did this just to stand out. Patreon is way different than running ads, people only have to pay if they want. and Jim doesn't do anything special for those who are patrons, so people only donate if they actually like the content.

and I also don't think it was because of Nintendo and their policies. none of that says he can't like their games, so he'd probably still give BoTW a higher score if it didn't have these issues. I think the best example of this is his MGSV: The Phantom Pain review, with a near glowing 9/10 score, despite thinking Konami is one of the worst game developers/publishers out there.

 

[CathyRina]

Jim makes money from his patreon supporters. How does one get more patreon supporters? By extending their audience. How does one expand their audience? You get yourself more attention. How do you get more attention? You do something different that makes you stand out in some way. Giving a game that's getting universal praise a lower review is a great way of standing out in the field, as is getting a developer to sue you over nothing more than the fact that you review and play games online (which obviously wasn't his goal, but I have no doubt that the whole Digital Homicide thing led to him receiving many more Patreon supporters, which could be what made him realize that the more he was out in the zeitgeist, the more money he'd ultimately make). I could be wrong, but Jim has a certain attitude about himself that has led me to believe that he's not always as genuine about the things he's talking about as he might have you believe. Again, none of that justifies him getting DDOSd, but I'm also not convinced that the 7 rating he gave the game is truly the rating he feels it deserves. Frankly I really don't care what he or metacritic gave it, but I am genuinely a little bit skeptical of him and some of the things he says/does.

Why would you pay him patreon money on a review you didn't like? Have you even read the review? He said that he really likes the game except for the weapon durability that kills the joy of combat which is like half of the game.
Similarly why would you pay patreon money when he points his finger at Digital Homoshite when he's already well funded? Not once he asked for extra support on patreon when shit sued him. Not once he linked his patreon account after a "controversial" review. The same thing happened when he gave a much less glowing review to no mans sky a game that the fanbase would kill for and turned out to be boring shit on launch. That's what happening here, he's honest, not shy to give games scores he believes they deserve, that's all.

 

[dimmidice]

Haven't played it myself so i can't be certain but it seems incredibly repetitive to me. That along with dumbed down puzzles and smaller dungeons isn't appealing to me. I'm sure it's a fun game but i just can't see why it's deserving of all these 99/100's.

 

[Kioku]

The low key click bait jokes make this thread. Let's be honest here.

 

[Deathbot64]

Sonic Boom Fire&Ice got a 7.5 from IGN.

So, those are just one reviewers opinion.

 

[duffmmann]

Why would you pay him patreon money on a review you didn't like? Have you even read the review? He said that he really likes the game except for the weapon durability that kills the joy of combat which is like half of the game.
Similarly why would you pay patreon money when he points his finger at Digital Homoshite when he's already well funded? Not once he asked for extra support on patreon when shit sued him. Not once he linked his patreon account after a "controversial" review. The same thing happened when he gave a much less glowing review to no mans sky a game that the fanbase would kill for and turned out to be boring shit on launch. That's what happening here, he's honest, not shy to give games scores he believes they deserve, that's all.

I wouldn't, but there are plenty of Zelda haters out there. you look at the user ratings on metacritic for Breath of the Wild? A whole lot of zeroes from the people that either don't like Nintendo or Zelda or just want to troll. These are the kinds of people that might be like hey this contrarian thinks like me, I'll support him. Meanwhile, there are already hundreds of people giving the game a 10 out of 10, if Jim were to give it a high rating that would be just shouting in the wind, no one would notice, and no one would care, he wouldn't get many new patreon supporters from such a rating. I do honestly believe that by giving it a lower rating it does get him more attention which in turn can turn into more supporters from the kind of people that would go on Metacritic and give the game a low rating on purpose. I can't say that's his end game or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Frankly I don't care, but I've grown to not be so trustworthy in the guy the more that I've watched his videos over the years. Something about him has always rubbed me the wrong way in terms of his overall attitude, though I really can't quite put my finger on what it is.

 

[hobbledehoy899]

This sort of shit is why more'n'more people are becoming anti-(modern )Nintendo... for the milking of lulz from lol-cow Nintendo fannies.

 

[CathyRina]

I wouldn't, but there are plenty of Zelda haters out there. you look at the user ratings on metacritic for Breath of the Wild? A whole lot of zeroes from the people that either don't like Nintendo or Zelda or just want to troll. These are the kinds of people that might be like hey this contrarian thinks like me, I'll support him. Meanwhile, there are already hundreds of people giving the game a 10 out of 10, if Jim were to give it a high rating that would be just shouting in the wind, no one would notice, and no one would care, he wouldn't get many new patreon supporters from such a rating. I do honestly believe that by giving it a lower rating it does get him more attention which in turn can turn into more supporters from the kind of people that would go on Metacritic and give the game a low rating on purpose. I can't say that's his end game or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Frankly I don't care, but I've grown to not be so trustworthy in the guy the more that I've watched his videos over the years. Something about him has always rubbed me the wrong way in terms of his overall attitude, though I really can't quite put my finger on what it is.

You overestimate the good will of internet trolls and your suspicions comes purely from not knowing the reviewer.

 

[Foxi4]

Just more evidence that a certain section of Nintendo's fanbase confuses being a fan with absolutely brand loyalty and would stop at nothing to prove that they're autistic. We see it everyday, some people just can't take criticism, as if their favourite game was their baby. They act as if giving the game a fair score is equivalent to shaking their newborn - it's just a video game, chill out.

 

[duffmmann]

You overestimate the good will of internet trolls and your suspicions comes purely from not knowing the reviewer.

I know him well enough, been subscribed to him for years. Like I said, I can't say its his end game or not, but it wouldn't surprise me given how I've always taken the things he says with a grain of salt. He has always been prone to hyperbole, needlessly harsh on some indie developers, yet very forgiving to others when he has some personal involvement like his voice appearing in their games. I enjoy his content overall, but I don't fully trust the guy. That's all I'm really saying. I absolutely could be wrong about the guy, but he's done nothing to make me feel that I am wrong about him.

 

[CathyRina]

Just more evidence that a certain section of Nintendo's fanbase confuses being a fan with absolutely brand loyalty and would stop at nothing to prove that they're autistic. We see it everyday, some people just can't take criticism, as if their favourite game was their baby. They act as if giving the game a fair score is equivalent to shaking their newborn - it's just a video game, chill out.

Jim said it best himself "If you love your game so much why don't you just go and play it then? Why do you care so much about the opinion of a stranger that you'd rather spend time Ddos-ing him instead of playing the game"

 

[Foxi4]

Why would you pay him patreon money on a review you didn't like? Have you even read the review? He said that he really likes the game except for the weapon durability that kills the joy of combat which is like half of the game.
Similarly why would you pay patreon money when he points his finger at Digital Homoshite when he's already well funded? Not once he asked for extra support on patreon when shit sued him. Not once he linked his patreon account after a "controversial" review. The same thing happened when he gave a much less glowing review to no mans sky a game that the fanbase would kill for and turned out to be boring shit on launch. That's what happening here, he's honest, not shy to give games scores he believes they deserve, that's all.

Dangling Patreon money on a stick like a carrot for a donkey to shake a reviewer down and make sure that he affirms your pre-concieved notion that the game you're looking forward to is the second coming of Christ is incredibly childish. It would be completely dishonest of him to score a title any higher than he believes it should be scored. I personally don't like the guy as an individual, but I'll happily support him when someone's trying to infringe on his God-given right to free speech, because that's what this is - an attempt to silence a review that some people don't like.