It is an unhealthy pleasure that keeps me up at night.
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Tag: Digital Homicide
It’s Official: Gamers Hate Warcraft 3 More Than Digital Homicide
Digital Homicide will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing blights on the gaming industry. Since one of the two Romines has decided to put himself back into the public eye by publishing propaganda about the company’s short-lived history, now is as good of a time as any to bring up the company’s titles in reference to…Warcraft 3?
Yes, Warcraft 3. Following Blizzard’s PR nightmare last year regarding Hearthstone and Blitzchung, the company finds itself once again being nearly universally roasted over the release of Warcraft 3: Reforged. You name it, customers are probably angry over it. Misleading advertising, reduced animations, broken servers, merging the remake with the original client, Blizzard’s EULA stating they own any mod you make, the list goes on and on and on.
But you know the proverbial shinola has hit the fan when your AAA game is rated lower than Digital Homicide’s worst-rated title. More than 10,000 people have voted on Warcraft 3 on Metacritic and have given the game a 0.6 rating. By contrast DigiHom’s lowest rated game is The Slaughtering Grounds which stands at a 0.9.
Yes, Warcraft 3 is viewed less favorably than a developer that tried to launch frivolous lawsuits against 100 Steam uses and a Youtube critic for being mean.
IPE: Romine V Sterling Lawsuit Dismissed With Prejudice
The lawsuit by ex-Steam developer James Romine against Youtube personality James Stanton (Jim Sterling) looks like it is officially over, as Romine has presented stipulation for dismissal. The lawsuit, which started more than a year ago, has been dismissed with prejudice, meaning Romine cannot bring the same charges by the same evidence back into court again, ever. As part of the dismissal, Romine has also agreed to stop filing frivolous DMCA takedown notices against Sterling’s videos without first considering fair use.
Plaintiff agrees to forever refrain from directly or indirectly filing against Defendant any cause of action arising from the same facts or circumstances alleged in the Amended Complaint. Plaintiff also agrees to refrain from taking action against Defendant’s business, such as sending DMCA takedown notices, without first considering whether Defendant is engaged in fair use of a copyright under 17 U.S.C. § 107, as required under federal law and Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015).
(Source: Court files)
Homicide By Any Other Name: The Latest On The Romine Case
Here at MMO Fallout, the dead truly never stay down, and nothing says painstaking existence quite like the story of Digital Homicide and the lawsuit by James Romine against Jim Sterling. Those of you new to this discussion are going to have to read the archives, after going on two years of discussing what Digital Homicide is and what they do, frankly I’m sick of retelling the same story every other month. When we last left this story, the judge had dismissed Romine’s case unless he could present a counter-argument through an attorney. Key part of this phrase, through an attorney. Keep that in mind for the weeks ahead, it is very important.
Since Romine decided to file yet another 73 page document, I went through and plucked out some of the more interesting facts/claims that were made this time around. See below:
- Romine is now claiming that Jim Sterling is a direct competitor, as Sterling is “a member of a development team” currently working on a Steam release, thus alleging jurisdiction in Arizona because said game will no doubt be sold in Arizona.
- The idea that Romine has been using alternate accounts to put out other games and hide his name, because having either Romine or Digital Homicide attached to your name is guaranteed rejection by the gaming public, has basically been solidified in legal documents. Romine planned on using the Micro Strategic Designs name to ‘rebrand,’ an effort that was ruined because the developer messed up and accidentally placed the game in a Digital Homicide bundle, thus revealing the connection.
- The goal at the time was to completely retire the name Digital Homicide, because the name itself was irreparably damaged thanks to bad press and extremely low rated games.
- Romine believes that it is unfair for Digital Homicide’s poor reputation to follow to a new company owned and operated by the same people.
- How easy it is to game Steam Greenlight: According to the court documents, Attrition: Nuclear Domination made it through Steam Greenlight with just 500 yes votes. If you’re wondering how all of these bad games get through, here is your answer.
- Romine has more alternate accounts, under the names Vampier Straud, TheMac, SimplebutFunGames, and Micro Strategic Designs. There are seven total, four owned 100% by Romine.
- Valve nearly gave Digital Homicide the boot in 2015: According to the documents, Valve nearly gave Digital Homicide the boot in October 2015, stopping only because Romine begged (his word) them not to, promising to remove his future products to avoid having everything shut down. Incidentally, Valve would ultimately terminate their business with Digital Homicide following aggressive legal action from the latter.
- Someone sent a bag of poop by mail to Digital Homicide. Don’t do that.
How will the court respond? There’s only one way to find out. Tune in next time, folks.
IPE: Romine V Stanton Lawsuit Dismissed, With Special Caveat
You thought it was over but it wasn’t, or at least it soon will be. James Romine’s lawsuit against Jim Sterling may have hit its final note after a long and rather ridiculous back and forth, with the revelation that the lawsuit has been dismissed. For the course of this lawsuit, you may have been misled to believe that Sterling’s focal point was on the fact that Arizona did not have jurisdiction over the case, and therefore would need to dismiss it. Far be it from me to violate the law by offering legal advice as one without a license. In reality, however, Sterling’s lawyers have focused on whether or not Romine is the proper entity to bring the case.
For instance, a cashier cannot sue a person who damages the store they work at, the store has to do it.
Now the law can look the other way on said rule if the corporate entity can be claimed as an alter ego of the individual. In this case, however, since the two Romine brothers own Digital Homicide, said rule cannot be used, since Romine did not make allegations that the acts of development were carried as an individual rather than as a corporate entity, specifically arguing that the defendant (Sterling) targeted the company itself and claiming damages that were suffered by the company rather than himself as an individual. The court does note that Romine included emotional and financial distress, however.
One issue I’ve been harping on this whole time, to an unnecessary extent, is that James Romine did need, and always will need a lawyer if he’s going to even have a chance of seeing this lawsuit go to trial. You see, while individuals can bring lawsuits pro se (without a lawyer), companies cannot. Digital Homicide would need legal council which nobody is willing to crowdfund, which no lawyer will take without upfront payment, and of which the company cannot afford after destroying their own business by attempting to serve Valve with a subpoena causing their contract to be terminated.
So Romine can’t bring lawsuit against Sterling for damages against DHS’ finances, unless he can prove to the court that he can, but DHS cannot appear in court pro se and needs to be represented through legal council, so the court has granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, as well as denying Romine’s last two motions to amend as moot. Romine has until February 10, 2017 to file an amended complaint or the case will be dismissed entirely. It is important to note here that said complaint must be filed by a licensed attorney.
Digital Homicide’s Business Destroyed, Lawsuit Against Steam Users Ends
The lawsuit by James Romine against 100 unknown Steam users has come to an end. A few days ago, Romine filed a motion for extension of time or dismissal without prejudice, effectively asking the court to either grant him more time or to kill the case until a future date. The reason, as stated in the documents, is as such:
“Upon filing this case, per advice of the local sheriff who could not help me or my business with a massive ARS-13-2921 criminal harassment problem on an Internet Store front and via email, the Plaintiffs business was destroyed completely financially disabling The Plaintiff, destroying usability of all current work effort, and untold other damages.”
If you haven’t been keeping track, Valve responded to a submitted subpoena by terminating their business agreement with Digital Homicide, citing hostility toward customers as a primary reason. As a result, Digital Homicide lost access to a platform that holds at least 70% of the PC gaming community. As such, according to documents filed with the clerk on 9/27, Romine is unable to afford the cost of serving the defendants in said Steam case. Romine had initially asked for either a 90 day suspension or a refund of filing fees and a dismissal without prejudice, which would allow the case to be pursued at a later date.
The court, under the Honorable Stephen M. McNamee, has approved decision #2 and dismissed the case without prejudice. As of September 30th, the case has been terminated. MMO Fallout will update should the case be renewed in the future.
[Breaking] DigiHom Update: All Games Disappear From Store Front
Relations between Digital Homicide and Valve appear to have gone sour, with sparse details and speculation running rampant after all of Digital Homicide’s games were pulled from Steam one by one earlier today. The news comes on the heels of the revelation that James Romine, owner of indie game developer Digital Homicide, had subpoena’d Valve for the identities of 100 Steam users in pending litigation over negative comments regarding his games on Steam.
Tech Raptor has reportedly received a comment from Valve, confirming that the games were removed due to the developer’s hostility towards customers.
Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.
MMO Fallout has reached out to Digital Homicide for comment.
James Romine Subpoenas Valve For Steam User Details
Digital Homicide’s James Romine has filed a subpoena against Valve in Phoenix to discover the identities of what appears to be 100 anonymous users who had made statements about the company in the past. The documents were filed and the subpoena granted this week. The case has been assigned to Magistrate Judge Eileen Willett. Romine is representing himself and is demanding $18,000,000 with the nature of the suit being personal injury.
More information as it appears.
DigiHom Update: Some Clarification
To our readers,
Last week, MMO Fallout published a piece titled “DigiHom Update: Tons of Games Disappear From Greenlight.” Since its publishing, we have received word from Digital Homicide over several inaccurate statements in the article. According to these statements, the games we noted that were removed from Greenlight were voluntarily removed and not by Valve as we originally surmised. The issue of Digital Homicide’s games being tagged incompatible was revealed to be due to a bug in the Steam API. The games themselves were indeed listed as incompatible on June 3rd, a decision that was reversed on June 6th.
Finally, we’d like to clarify that the lawsuit against James Stanton (Jim Sterling) was filed by James Romine himself, and does not involve Digital Homicide as an organization.
As a publication that strives for accuracy in our coverage, MMO Fallout strongly apologizes for the errors. This is meant to cover all instances where the above statements were made.
Thank you for your patience, and now back to your regularly scheduled programming,
Connor
MMO Fallout
DigiHom Update: Tons of Games Disappear From Greenlight
[Update: Several errors have been fixed or clarified in bold below. MMO Fallout apologizes for the inconvenience]
Digital Homicide’s James Romine may be throwing a temper tantrum right now, and for good reason: Close to two dozen of his games have been removed from Steam.
We’ve been covering Digital Homicide filling its Greenlight queue up with spam filler ever since the developer uploaded dozens of titles back in June, a majority of them simple Space Invaders games and clones of one another. Last month I noted that Valve’s Greenlight team seems to be unsure as to whether or not DigiHom’s games qualify for Steam, with the titles being tagged incompatible on and off on a nearly daily basis. James Romine has commented that this is actually due to modifications made to Steam’s API resulting in numerous games being falsely tagged and untagged.
It appears we have our answer. Digital Homicide’s list of Greenlight items now stands at 27 from its high at 50. Of the 27 that remain, four have been greenlit and already released. All of Digital Homicide’s games (19 at the time of this publishing) carry a negative, “mostly negative,” or “very negative,” approval rating.
For continuing updates on the lawsuit against James Stanton (Jim Sterling), stay tuned.
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