Without getting anyone into trouble, is it possible for someone with access to the filings to summarize the actual civil charges that are being levied against Jim Sterling? Like slander, inciting to violence, harassment, etc, etc?
I'll try but it's very difficult to summarize because it has very little structure. Most complaints are just supposed to make their claim against the Defendant and leave it at that. They usually don't even include any attachments. The evidence and statements presented later on prove your complaint. In other words, don't show all your cards right now, no need to, and you might find something juicy later.
But like many Pro Se litigants, Digital Homicide instead decided to dish everything out in the complaint and instead of just making claims they tell a story with tons of details, some of which don't seem to go anywhere. Some of their "Counts" aren't even claims but just things that happened in their retelling of this story.
Here's my summary. They basically have 11 counts of Libel Per Se/Pro Quod but the last one is labeled "Count 10" because math is hard, apparently. But it's all libel, so I don't know where they're getting the "Assault" claim because it's not in the complaint. The first 10 counts revolve around a September 24, 2015 article Jim Wrote entitled "Digital Homicide And The Case of The Sockpuppet Developers."
(the
quotes are all Jim Sterling, the
bold parts are my notes)
Count 1) "It's also worth noting that Galactic Hitman's artwork has been taken from elsewhere, just like the initial art for The Slaughtering Grounds was." They claim this is false, and they took down the artwork
Count 2) "Here, we've seen it lead to potential legal trouble for the folks who rebranded and accidentally defamed a completely different studio" This is about ECC games and they claim they've always been ECC games so this is false
Count 3) "apparently you don't need to prove your company's legitimacy or even existence, since it's all based on usernames" Same as above
Count 4) "It also has a Twitter account which, prior to now, has no history of mentioning either Devil's Share nor Galactic Hitman" Same as above
Count 5) "Chicanery may lead into some very real legal trouble" They say the real ECC Games people can't sue them because they didn't register that trademark in the US, so this statement is false
Count 6) "Being as sly as Wet Bandits" Digital Homicide resents the Home Alone reference
Count 7) "Romino" claims Jim misspells his name to insinuate a "relation to a mob or mafia family"
Count 8) Post from twitter linking to the article:
"I wrote an article on everything we know about Digital Homicide/ECC Games weirdness" claims Jim is spreading his misinformation
Count 9) "According to the email, this ECC Games is pursuing legal action against DH for using its name. Not enough popcorn on Earth." they don't really rebut this they just keep saying Jim is wrong because they've always operated as ECC but they don't say what happened here or deny that some legal action happened
They then go into a very strange discussion here about how Jim makes money off his subscribers and they don't have the resources to fight his network. It's really out of place and doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Count 10) a tweet:
"Jesus Christ, I just got an email from ECC Games saying they're NOT the ECC Games Digital Homicide named itself after. This is weeeeird." they claim Jim should have contacted them first to get the facts and he's pretending to be surprised
Then their libel claims are strangely broken up here by a section titled "Incident Causing Lost Product Damage" where they tell a story about how their "Distributor" got on their case after all the controversy. Again- it's very hard to read this. They don't say who "The Distributor" is and typically a complaint will define the people involved at the beginning before they start referring to people or entities like that. They only say the people from the distributor that contacted them were Conor Malone and Tom Giardino. But I figure the distributor is Steam because later on they say: "The Plaintiff managed to convince The Steam Representative, Tom, that The Plaintiff had not done anything illegal and The Plaintiff was a victim of false statements. Tom Giardino accepted this sacrifice." This section is by far the most enjoyable part to read. I love how they refer to taking down their games as a "sacrifice."
"Count 10)" [sic] an undated post from Jim ending with:
"I will not deny the pleasure I take in sticking it to them, but their name is mud for a reason, and people deserve to know who's really selling them products." they claim this proves Jim's intent. They reveal some interesting info, they say there's nothing shady about exchanging keys for votes and say they gave away 25,000 keys to get greenlit. I think they probably added this to the end at the last minute.
I'm really excited to see what happens! Federal Court judges are no fuckin joke, they have no time for this bullshit. Most judges tend to be nice to Pro Se litigants because they don't want to look bad in the public eye. But it's harder to find a federal judge like that because they're appointed for life so they don't have to put on a good face for anybody. I want to see what the judge tells them! I'm not too far from Arizona, if this really drags out maybe I can go watch!!
I seriously doubt it will though. Going Pro Se in Federal is dangerous. You have to really know your shit and it's a minefield of deadlines and reports you have to file or you get in trouble. Digital Homicide probably won't follow the scheduling order requirements (or not even know what to do with them) and the judge will use that as an excuse to dismiss it and have one less shitty case on his docket to worry about. They really made a mistake going into Federal Court.
