In today’s episode of “The Jimquisition”, Jim Sterling finally told the story about Digital Homicide suing him over his covering of their video games on the Steam software distribution service. I covered Jim Sterling and Digital Homicide before, sharing a few videos on the subject – if you haven’t seen those articles, they are worth checking out here before continuing:
Jim Sterling Vs Digital Homicide; The Interview
Digital Homicide: The Full Story
While presented in the usual eccentric style that Jim Sterling is known for, this video does go into quite a bit of detail on the subject of not only their suit against him, but also in generally covering just what Digital Homicide, under whatever name it chose to operate under that week, did in the year long period where Jim didn’t cover them at all, up to and including their pathetic attempt to sue over 100 Steam users at once for reasons I honestly can’t even remember it was that pathetic.
I really don’t have any commentary; the video speaks for itself. What I will say is this: Game journalism is as much a protected form of commentary as any other type of “news”, and as such should be, and thankfully is, protected in much the same way. No company, no matter how large or small, should ever be able to legally attack anyone in games media coverage simply because they don’t like what that person has said. The law is not a weapon, it’s a method of keeping order. Software houses would do well to remember this in all contexts.