Digital Homicide’s Jim Sterling lawsuit has been dismissed

An attempt by PC developer Digital Homicide to sue games critic Jim Sterling has been thrown out of court.

The studio had tried to sue Sterling, whose real name is James Stanton, for $10m after his scathing assessment of Steam release Slaughtering Grounds. All manner of accusations were thrown Sterling’s way, including that he was guilty of libel, slander and even assault, as well as collusion with Valve.

Digital Homicide even went as far as to try and sue 100 Steam users who had left negative reviews for the game – a move that saw the studio dropped from the PC platform entirely.

That [the case] got as far as it did, went on for as long as it did, is atrocious – especially when this is a case that amounts to a game developer wanting to silence a game critic,” Sterling said.

I personally viewed, and still view, the lawsuit as an attempted attack on my freedom to do my legally protected job. I personally perceive it as an attack launched by a man who is unable to deal with criticism in a reasonable fashion and has sought to blame me, continuously, for his failures.

There is no conspiracy. There is no orchestrated terror campaign. There is simply what there has always been – one random critic in a sea of them having a stupid fight with a pair of brothers who don’t make a lot of sense and whose claims have a strained relationship with reality.

Many will have come here expecting humor or laughter, but I want to make it quite clear that I do not find this lawsuit funny in the slightest. Even getting the result I wanted is bittersweet, as it’s the result to a situation that should never have occurred – a distasteful situation that fills me with surrogate embarrassment for the man who filed it.

I find this lawsuit disgusting. It was and it is and it shall forever be disgusting.

P.S. I did not enjoy playing The Slaughtering Grounds very much.”