Jim Sterling Pro Reviewer and Youtube Personality DDOS'd Over 'Low' Score Zelda BotW Review

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.)

Screenshot+2017-03-13+01.32.07.png

Jim Sterlings Review notes said:
“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.

Jim Sterling on the reviews for Zelda said:
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?
 

mimien

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
3
Trophies
0
Age
30
XP
41
Country
Mexico
i suppose you missed the entire thread and don't know really who he is.
More or less. I read the thread and to be honest I don't care if he got ddos'd I am not surprised either. My reaction was omg someone had to do a negative review of botw for summoning attention. I know he is somewhat famous but the attention he is getting because of this is drastically more than what he usually gets. And that's exactly what he wanted, a reaction. Which is why It makes me angry. It's like when you were a child at a party having a good time with your classmates and the bully of the school comes up and the first thing he does is an attention seeking maneuver. Does he review Nintendo things often? I searched Jim Sterling Nintendo on youtube and the results were showing he is a huge Nintendo bully. In fact I think the whole reason he is youtube popular is that he has been following the bully image make himself look cool and awesome. And I could keep going but let's what you or someone else have to say about this first.
 

CheatFreak47

Catgirl Expert
Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2011
Messages
1,570
Trophies
2
Age
28
Location
Michigan, USA
XP
2,760
Country
United States
More or less. I read the thread and to be honest I don't care if he got ddos'd I am not surprised either. My reaction was omg someone had to do a negative review of botw for summoning attention. I know he is somewhat famous but the attention he is getting because of this is drastically more than what he usually gets. And that's exactly what he wanted, a reaction. Which is why It makes me angry. It's like when you were a child at a party having a good time with your classmates and the bully of the school comes up and the first thing he does is an attention seeking maneuver. Does he review Nintendo things often? I searched Jim Sterling Nintendo on youtube and the results were showing he is a huge Nintendo bully. In fact I think the whole reason he is youtube popular is that he has been following the bully image make himself look cool and awesome. And I could keep going but let's what you or someone else have to say about this first.

7/10 is hardly negative, first of all. If you think a 7/10 is worthy of attention, you're part of the problem as far as I'm concerned.

And no not really, he's not a bully for pointing out flaws in a large corporation who has directly wronged him.
In fact, the very definition of "bully" is inapplicable, because Sterling is the smaller, weaker entity.

He makes himself look awesome because he is, in fact, quite awesome.
Most of the time, at least.

The guy knows his shit basically, he's been writing and talking about video games for a living since at least 2009 if I recall correctly.

Ever heard of #FucKonami?
Sterling is the guy that started that, to my knowledge.

Edit:
A lot of his criticisms of Nintendo are essentially that they will abuse their power as a large corporation and step on the copyrights of smaller entities, like individual people, critics, let's players, youtubers- usually by abusing the DMCA system. However, when the tables are turned and people infringe their copyrights- for example, Emulation or Piracy of their products, it's not OK anymore and they attack that too.

He also hates how their virtual console system is utter trash, how they purposefully withhold supply to meet demand to artificially stimulate demand, stuff that they do as a corporation/console manufacturer that could be considered Anti-Consumer.

He picks on all corporations and companies that make stupid idiotic mistakes like this too- Not just Nintendo, for the record, but those are the basic outlines of the Nintendo specific content.
 
Last edited by CheatFreak47,

s157

Grinder Extraordinaire
Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
418
Trophies
0
XP
287
Country
United States
People are free to dislike BotW. People are free to dislike those who seem to dislike BotW. At least the general consensus here is that aside from a select few fervent worshippers of the game who think a 7/10 score is worthy of capital punishment, ddos-ing him is too far. Even many people who rate BotW highly agree on that, even though they dislike him as a person
 

naughty_cat

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2013
Messages
218
Trophies
0
Age
36
XP
600
Country
Egypt
He also hates how their virtual console system is utter trash, how they purposefully withhold supply to meet demand to artificially stimulate demand, stuff that they do as a corporation/console manufacturer that could be considered Anti-Consumer.

I believe the term "Anti-consumer" pretty much hits the spot... It's not just Nintendo... Anti-consumer maneuvers have become a trend amongst large video game corporations in recent years. Putting it that way: "how they purposefully withhold supply to meet demand to artificially stimulate demand" pretty much outlines the development history of games such as MGSV. The difference is that most of the successful gaming coportations would usually do their very best to hide their tracks... Others such as Nintendo and Konami have been becoming quite vulgar about it...

EDIT: I for one believe that Jim's (somewhat offensive) comments about BOTW might have been a lot friendlier had Nintendo followed a different, more friendly supply-and-demand policy along the past few years. I also believe that he might have actually given it a slightly higher score had it been developed and published by some kind of 3rd party game developer or something (and to clearly illustrate this analogy, I'd have to imagine that we're living in an alternative universe where it's the exact same game, but doesn't have the title "Zelda" and has no predecessors :D)
 
Last edited by naughty_cat,

SNEAKxxATTACK

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Feb 27, 2017
Messages
8
Trophies
0
Age
31
XP
81
Country
United States
The existence of the 'influential person argument' is so annoying. Especially people like this. He's not really that important. The biggest reaction that should be had is "oh you're an idiot," as a comment or just at the screen.

Anyway. I don't believe any normal person did this. Probably ninty.
 
  • Like
Reactions: naughty_cat

Molina

My title? It's gone,... like the last fuck I gave.
Member
Joined
May 14, 2016
Messages
230
Trophies
0
Age
29
XP
209
Country
France
Anyway. I don't believe any normal person did this. Probably ninty.
Seems kinda too big but I get the idea. Look at the thread, just by explaining why the system is flawed and how Ninty could have done much more, a lot of people get triggered. So I think a -1 on Metacritic is able to trigger fanboy (and not just Ninty one, I remember a hell of hatred when Overwatch went down too).
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
Holy crap, 6 pages in 24 hours and it's mostly 2 idiots throwing a fit that Jim didn't give the game a 10/10. what a pair of mooks! @netovsk (Redacted, Sorry @FierceDeityLinkMask) how do you sleep at night when you fight so hard to dissuade people from having their own opinions by presenting your own hypocritical opinions as cold hard facts? Or knowing that you are fighting fiercely to defend a practice that will undoubtedly contribute to a second Videogame market crash?
 
Last edited by ,

FierceDeityLinkMask

GbaTemp's Official Deity
Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2016
Messages
422
Trophies
0
Location
Above All Others
XP
471
Country
United States
Holy crap, 6 pages in 24 hours and it's mostly 2 idiots throwing a fit that Jim didn't give the game a 10/10. what a pair of mooks! @netovsk and @FierceDeityLinkMask how do you sleep at night when you fight so hard to dissuade people from having their own opinions by presenting your own hypocritical opinions as cold hard facts? Or knowing that you are fighting fiercely to defend a practice that will undoubtedly contribute to a second Videogame market crash?
I don't recall ranting about Jim's review score. In fact I could care less if he did this for attention or not. I was arguing with someone else about something else almost entirely. I don't care about Nintendo as a business or their business practices because I believe that every non profit business will try to maximize money in any way they can, without giving a damn about who they step over. That includes Nintendo and any other video game company. How did you sleep after making such a retarded claim about me based on no evidence??? I don't give a damn if Jim didn't give Zelda a 10/10. I don't even watch the guy's videos.
 

s157

Grinder Extraordinaire
Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
418
Trophies
0
XP
287
Country
United States
My argument over terms mostly with @FierceDeityLinkMask was irrelevant to the topic at hand and I'm quite ashamed about that. Not about my position, but for the fact it was out of topic. This thread is about Jim Sterling and the attacks he's been suffering due to his review.

These "cancerous" posts are normally relevant to the post, as the ones who are bashing Jim either believe he deserves it or that DDoS-ing him is too far even if he's a jerk. The ones who believe he deserve it however take it a step further and insult his character. But then again, if you look at many switch threads, they tend to get out of hand, speaking very lightly.

Just as people have the right to bash Jim, people have the right to defend him, and the right to do so should be respected on both sides. Personally I don't see how Jim's opinion should be relevant to you unless you agree with most of his reviews, thus insinuating that you can take his words more seriously. I agree with most of his reviews, though I believe he scored BotW a tad low, however his opinions have some impact on me. I also would consider myself a Zelda fan, having owned every physical copy of the game save for Zelda II and Link's Awakening. But moreso, I can respect his opinion that BotW is a good game, but not perfect even if I would rate it slightly higher as a "great" game.
 

FierceDeityLinkMask

GbaTemp's Official Deity
Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2016
Messages
422
Trophies
0
Location
Above All Others
XP
471
Country
United States
My argument over terms mostly with @FierceDeityLinkMask was irrelevant to the topic at hand and I'm quite ashamed about that. Not about my position, but for the fact it was out of topic. This thread is about Jim Sterling and the attacks he's been suffering due to his review.

These "cancerous" posts are normally relevant to the post, as the ones who are bashing Jim either believe he deserves it or that DDoS-ing him is too far even if he's a jerk. The ones who believe he deserve it however take it a step further and insult his character. But then again, if you look at many switch threads, they tend to get out of hand, speaking very lightly.

Just as people have the right to bash Jim, people have the right to defend him, and the right to do so should be respected on both sides. Personally I don't see how Jim's opinion should be relevant to you unless you agree with most of his reviews, thus insinuating that you can take his words more seriously. I agree with most of his reviews, though I believe he scored BotW a tad low, however his opinions have some impact on me. I also would consider myself a Zelda fan, having owned every physical copy of the game save for Zelda II and Link's Awakening. But moreso, I can respect his opinion that BotW is a good game, but not perfect even if I would rate it slightly higher as a "great" game.
Well put.
 

netovsk

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,026
Trophies
0
XP
736
Country
Brazil
Holy crap, 6 pages in 24 hours and it's mostly 2 idiots throwing a fit that Jim didn't give the game a 10/10. what a pair of mooks! @netovsk and @FierceDeityLinkMask how do you sleep at night when you fight so hard to dissuade people from having their own opinions by presenting your own hypocritical opinions as cold hard facts? Or knowing that you are fighting fiercely to defend a practice that will undoubtedly contribute to a second Videogame market crash?

Are you just that much asinine to realize he can have its own shitty opinion as long as he isn't a metacritic reviewer and bring overall score down? That's the only real reason people are pissed off. They don't give a damn about his opinion, much less yours.
 

ihaveahax

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2015
Messages
6,069
Trophies
2
XP
7,805
Country
United States
Are you just that much asinine to realize he can have its own shitty opinion as long as he isn't a metacritic reviewer and bring overall score down? That's the only real reason people are pissed off. They don't give a damn about his opinion, much less yours.
at this point I just think you're saying he has a shitty opinion because you disagree with his 7/10. metacritic is actually supportive of his work in the face of people asking for him to be taken off the site.

Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/841633354298585088
Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/841634192203141120
 
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
2,572
Trophies
2
XP
3,771
Country
United States
Are you just that much asinine to realize he can have its own shitty opinion as long as he isn't a metacritic reviewer and bring overall score down? That's the only real reason people are pissed off. They don't give a damn about his opinion, much less yours.
Who cares about metacritic? I haven't read a game review beyond the comment section on private torrent sites. All these "professional reviewers" are just part of the pre-order hype machine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: VinsCool

VinsCool

Persona Secretiva Felineus
Global Moderator
Joined
Jan 7, 2014
Messages
14,600
Trophies
4
Location
Another World
Website
www.gbatemp.net
XP
25,204
Country
Canada
Are you just that much asinine to realize he can have its own shitty opinion as long as he isn't a metacritic reviewer and bring overall score down? That's the only real reason people are pissed off. They don't give a damn about his opinion, much less yours.
They're a bunch of butthurt idiots if they're pissed off about a score.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Subtle Demise

netovsk

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,026
Trophies
0
XP
736
Country
Brazil
Who cares about metacritic? I haven't read a game review beyond the comment section on private torrent sites. All these "professional reviewers" are just part of the pre-order hype machine.


How exactly do you think people try to sell or shove to others faces that uncharted, for instance, has to be a good game even if they never played a game on the series? If nobody really cared, publishers themselves wouldn't stamp game scores on the game's own cover and ads as a selling point. Of course score going down or up doesn't change my opinion of the game, since I've already played it through.
 

s157

Grinder Extraordinaire
Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
418
Trophies
0
XP
287
Country
United States
That would be a more valid argument if his one score brought the overall score to like 75 or something. 97 instead of 98? Big deal. Anyone who hasn't played zelda and refuses to buy the game because of the metacritic score being 97 instead of 98 probably would not be in your list of people to recommend this game to. Good lord, you zelda zealots care too much about the opinion of one man who still enjoyed the game. 7/10 being an absolutely god awful review was bad enough, but 97/100 instead of 98 triggers you that much?
 
  • Like
Reactions: lonewolf08
Joined
May 22, 2016
Messages
923
Trophies
1
Location
Hell, MI
XP
3,628
Country
United States
Shut the (PING) up you stupid Zelda fanboys. I like Zelda. But I'm not going to give death threats to a guy who gave a Zelda game a 7/10. And I know how "important" BotW is to the series, but come on. SHOULD BE HANGED FOR HIS OPINION?!?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING?!? ALL THE MAN DID WAS GIVE A VIDEO GAME AN OK REVIEW!!! I WOULD TAKE 7/10!!!!! IT'S NOT LIKE HE GOT UP AND STARTED SHOUTING MEANS THINGS ABOUT AMERICA IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE! EDIT: May I also add that reviews exist for people to give their thoughts on things! They aren't always positive! Oh, and 7/10 is so bad!
 
Last edited by supergamer368,

duwen

Old Man Toad
Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2013
Messages
3,176
Trophies
2
Location
Bullet Hell
Website
www.exophase.com
XP
4,257
Country
United Kingdom
Jim's follow up video on YT was perfect - coupling his personal opinion of the weapon durability in the game with the fanatics response to his review he said "right now you're all being so fucking precious, so fragile, that you should all be swords in Hyrule".

Pure gold.
 
  • Like
Reactions: VinsCool
D

Deleted User

Guest
I don't recall ranting about Jim's review score. In fact I could care less if he did this for attention or not. I was arguing with someone else about something else almost entirely. I don't care about Nintendo as a business or their business practices because I believe that every non profit business will try to maximize money in any way they can, without giving a damn about who they step over. That includes Nintendo and any other video game company. How did you sleep after making such a retarded claim about me based on no evidence??? I don't give a damn if Jim didn't give Zelda a 10/10. I don't even watch the guy's videos.
My bad, I apologize. speaking of off topic, can we get a mod in here to clean up the off topic bits? thanks!

How exactly do you think people try to sell or shove to others faces that uncharted, for instance, has to be a good game even if they never played a game on the series? If nobody really cared, publishers themselves wouldn't stamp game scores on the game's own cover and ads as a selling point. Of course score going down or up doesn't change my opinion of the game, since I've already played it through.
Oh yeah, like that makes it any better. you're going to have to try WAY harder to excuse the Doublethink you've been spouting since you got here. (If you don't know what Doublethink is, check TV Tropes, or just read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and get educated)
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
    SylverReZ @ SylverReZ: @salazarcosplay, Morning