Indie devs at Digital Homicide sue Jim Sterling over alleged “slander”

A YouTube reviewer’s nightmare has come true. Digital Homicide, the publisher of virtually unheard of games such as: Medieval Mercs, Forsaken Uprising, and Galactic Hitman, has decided to sue Jim Sterling for a total of $10,761,000 in damages after a review video he made in which he claimed their game Slaughtering Grounds was a contender for the “worst game of 2014.”

According to the publicly released court documents, Digital Homicide is attempting to hold Sterling liable for about ten counts of libel. For those who don’t know, libel is the action of making false, malicious statements published through public broadcast (be it written, radio, or video). Digital Homicide is attempting to hold Sterling responsible for the video in question, in which he made a purely negative review of what he believed to be a truly terrible game. This lawsuit has apparently been brewing for some time, as Geek.com reported almost 8 months ago that the developer should drop their attempts to take down the video and simply move on.

Well, it’s March 2016, and Digital Homicide has no intent on dropping charges now. The main focus this time, however, seems to be that Digital Homicide has alleged that Sterling damaged their reputation after suggesting that the developers impersonated Poland-based developers ECC games, and that they were compared to – by Sterling – the Home Alone “Wet Bandits”. These two remarks are among 8 others that the publisher is seeking reparations for.

At the time of this publication, I have reached out to both Sterling and Digital Homicide for comment. So far, only Sterling has responded with the following:

“As with any pending legal issues, it would be unwise to say much at this time. My only commentary thus far is that I’m very confident and that the support I’ve received from people since the story broke has been wonderful and appreciated.”

The lack of comment is understandable, as any and all evidence could be used against Sterling in this case. For now, your beloved RR-sama will await Digital Homicide’s comments on the case. If they choose not to respond, we will simply have to wait for the results of the lawsuit to see what happens next.