i hope they are all bankrupt from the curt costs now... in company and in privat...
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Nah, I wouldn't wish that on them, especially not Robert Romine, who seems to have had very little to do with any of the legal action. I'll settle for "lost enough money that they never try to sue people for criticism on the internet again".
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Normally I skip youtube links but that one was worth it, +1
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hope they drop it and make more games under another name so i can idle again. 💜
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They may be dead on Steam but there are others who follow their footsteps and eventually fall into the chasm after them
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hope they learn how to properly make trash games to farm card profits from gamers idlers. ❤️
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It took them an awful lot of time to realize this simple thing there in the court. Well, better late than even later.
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when someone is representing themselves, courts will go out of their way to help them, which includes giving lots of chances to re-file and amend. plus courts move slow on low priority bullshit
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He's been suffering under this lawsuit since last March. And right now he's probably dying to make a video celebrating his win.
Real talk, though, I don't wish ill on either person and neither should anyone else.
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Because internet where you can make idle threats and immature comments without repercussions and fully knowing it doesn't amount to anything.
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Probably just because he's scum, but there's too much scum in the world to hate them all, so there's no real point.
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The only thing Jim has been suffering from, is holding back the tears of laughter.
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If the case gets dismissed this way, who will pay the court costs?
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That makes sense.
It won't establish a legal precedent, but at least it will show that filing suits for petty reasons can be costly.
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Both of them have already paid all the court costs, actually. Every time a document was filed, the court charged that side a fee to cover the judge's time spent reading it. I don't know Arizona law well enough to say whether Jim will be able to get back his share of the court fees or his attorney fees, but it definitely won't be automatic and it's up to the judge.
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it's irrelevant whether it's permitted or not, because he'd have to collect from digital homicide, which won't have the resources to pay for it.
Maybe he could take over their IP instead? that actually would be hilarious
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Actually, James Romine filed as himself, so his personal assets are at risk, not the company's
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They don't necessarily need to have the money to hire a lawyer. A lawyer could take the case for a percentage of the winnings.
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yes, but, consider the chance of winning is practically zero, and the amount that could be recovered in the slim chance they win is also not much more than zero, the lawyer would effectively be working for nothing
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Yeah, but Romine already tried that. He couldn't find a lawyer willing to take his case for a contingency fee.
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I had a read of a few of the linked sites and I still don't understand what this is about. You explained the current situation well, but what was the suit about - some blogger talking trash about their games?
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Pretty much. Jim Sterling posted negative impressions of one of their terrible games, Digital Homicide filed a BS DMCA takedown on the video, Jim made a video calling them out on it, they churned out a bunch more terrible games, Jim reviewed those as well, and the whole thing escalated into James Romine filing a lawsuit for $10.000,000 in damages on the grounds that Jim Sterling ruined his business and good name.
Then, about half a year later, they tried to sue 100 steam users for negative reviews and got booted off Steam by Valve for being "hostile to customers". Which ruined their business. They also had to abandon that suit almost immediately, because the judge wanted them to pay for the 100 subpoenas.
Finally, they posted a message on their website asking for a lawyer willing to help them sue Valve, but that obviously didn't go anywhere.
Summary: They tried to abuse the system to silence their critics and it backfired so spectacularly that they got kicked off Steam.
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Okay, thanks.
I can understand businesses being concerned about the massive potential impact of a handful of motivated people on social media when I see the success of misinformed loudmouths such as anti-vaccination campaigners. If someone is just providing an opinion and not making objectively false claims, you really just have to live with that, but I think the DMCA claim is not as cut and dried as it might seem at first blush. The original artist owns the rights to all derivative works, so the software house owns the rights to any footage captured from their game (https://www.redbubble.com/people/byron/journal/8728965-the-beginners-guide-to-copyright-and-dmca-part-1). There are exemptions for commentary and criticism, which is what the blogger would argue, but the software house could argue that it is not a legitimate critique (claiming a personal vendetta and citing their history), and if the guy is making money from his blog (e.g. via advertising), that would further muddy the water. Zuffa is an example of an organisation that tolerates very little third party use of their material (UFC). These laws rarely get tested because anyone that can afford the massive legal fees for such a protracted case is big enough to scare people into submission or pay for the problem to go away before it gets to court.
Anyway, it sounds like it was a good lesson to act within your area of competence and a reminder that it's easier to get to sleep at night if you behave cordially and responsibly.
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Basically, DH didn't like people reporting about their games and saying they were crap. They even made a vid calling Jim Sterling all kinds of names.
Eventually Steam banned them because they also wanted Steam to hand over customer information so they could sue the customers for saying the games are crap too.
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Thanks. Sounds like they had a bash at sorting things out their own way and figured out a bit too late that learning the rules should be the first part of any game.
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If they won, they could get enough money to pay for a lawyer and charges and rest of their life.
But it won't happen.
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About time this case got thrown out. The evidence provided by James Romine was more than enough to prove it was a frivolous lawsuit with no solid reasoning behind it.
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I find it baffling how it has never occured to DigiHom that maybe, just maaybeee, they have only themselves to blame O.o
They wouldn't have ended up in this mess, wouldn't have had their games removed from Steam, wouldn't have destroyed their own business, wouldn't have become a target of wide-spread "defamation", if they'd just settled for some angry internet comments instead of bringing on their little ridiculous lawsuits.
I'm going to miss them though, they became a great laughing stock :D
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Wow.....
Truly shocking.
Two brothers who couldn't make a game in unity without having a mental breakdown every time someone pointed out it was shit, also failed epically with their Baldrick-esque cunning plan to turn their shitty game dev business into a get rich quick scheme via the courts.
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If they only kept their mouths shut, they could still be raking in that sweet steam trading cards money /shrug. Instead we got the largest single purge from the steam store in it's short history (21). I played two of those (Slaughtering Grounds and Temper Tantrum) and I cannot comprehend how anyone could take pride with those two pieces of shit. You would have to be delusional to believe that those are even average, let alone good, quality games.
Glad to see this finally being wrapped up and can't wait to hear Jim's side of it all.
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But they have put all their love and soul in them... :P
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I would hope this episode would teach James Romine a lesson, but based on the sum of his actions up to this point and what he has demonstrated of his character and judgement, I sadly doubt it will.
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Too bad it sounds like it will be on a technicality and not on the merits (or lack thereof) of the case
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And a few weeks later, we get proof that this thread has an overly-optimistic title
Time to get more popcorn, this insanity is not quite over yet
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That's really up to the judge. It's possible that he decides the amended complaint is a waste of his time and kills the case. It's also possible that he extends his previous deadline, or that he accepts the amendment and they have another round of motions to dismiss.
Personally, I'd save that popcorn. From what I understand of the amended complaint, Romine's argument is along the lines of "Well, I quit my old job at Microsoft and started my own company. But when people found out I used to work for Microsoft, they didn't buy my stuff and I had to go back to Microsoft. Therefore I am the same thing as Microsoft and should personally receive compensation for all damages to Microsoft because I was forced to continue working there" I used Microsoft in place of Digital Homicide to highlight exactly why the amended complaint is terrible, but otherwise, that seems to be Romine's "proof" that Digital Homicide is his alter ego.
Hence the comment from that article on the subject: "It is my personal opinion that – of those portions of the amended lawsuit we may deem comprehensible – the charges are convoluted and possess such an intense degree of flimsiness, no word currently exists to convey quite how flimsy they are."
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This is the dude that sued another dude for making gameplay video of a shitty game and telling people that the game was shitty? 😂
Hilarious case I must say, but I thought the Homicide dude would never continue with his imaginary threat. I hope he loses a lot of money and starts working at a factory to support his family instead of just trying to win in a court for "justice".
I'm happy Steam did delete all their games. Suing users for publishing negative reviews is hilarious.
At first I thought we were talking about Sterling the legend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9jXYOH2c0
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One last bump with the most recent news. It took ten days longer than expected, but it's over.
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On 2/20/17, Jim Sterling's lawyer submitted a document, signed by James Romine, agreeing to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. The judge signed off on it on 2/21/17. The case is officially over.
You can read Jim's initial reaction here.
And his detailed video on the lawsuit here.
This comes after talks between James Romine and Jim Sterling's lawyer. The terms they agreed on are pretty simple. The dismissal is with prejudice, meaning James Romine signed a document agreeing that he will never sue Jim Sterling for anything in any of his claims relating to this case. Romine also agrees not to take any actions against Jim Sterling's business (such as DMCA takedowns) unless Sterling is actually violating the law. In exchange, both sides agree to pay their own legal fees.
Nobody's said what happened in those talks, but my speculation is that Sterling's lawyer showed Romine his bill and explained that if the case got dismissed or Romine lost, Romine would be paying that bill. And no, I don't mean Digital Homicide would be paying - James Romine filed under his own name, so his own personal assets and wages were at risk.
Old post below:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JimSterling/comments/5ny3ny/update_on_romine_v_stanton/
Summary: The court pointed out that Digital Homicide is a company with multiple owners, not just James Romine. An employee of a company cannot sue for damages to their entire company. Instead, Digital Homicide has to file the suit. And because Digital Homicide is a company and not a person, it cannot file a suit without naming a lawyer to represent it. They have until February 10th to amend the complaint or hand the case over to a lawyer. We already know from their gofundme that Digital Homicide can't afford a lawyer, so the case is pretty much guaranteed be dismissed on February 10th.
Summary of summary: Because Digital Homicide is two people and not just one, they need to hire a lawyer within a month or their case gets thrown out.
I'm glad this whole mess is finally coming to an end, although I'm a little sad that there won't be any fair use legal precedent established here since the case is being thrown out rather than ruled on.
Since some people probably don't know about the case, here's some good reading material. Start at "Digital Homicide, Jim Sterling, Lawyers, Slander, And A Lesson In Legality" and work your way up.
EDIT (Feb 8, 2017): Romine took the "amend the complaint" route. He's now admitting that he tried to sell games under four other companies that were really just him. And he's saying that his efforts to start four new companies failed because of Jim Sterling associating the new companies with Digital Homicide. And since he didn't intend to keep using the Digital Homicide brand, he claims the same amount in damages as before because he was forced to go back.
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