My favorite part of Sarcastic Gamer is the opportunity it affords me to meet new people. From the folks in our adorable community to those from without. Last year at E3 I bumped into Ron Workman, who at the time was with Destructoid. Well to be honest I think Ron bumped into me. You see there was an open bar that night so I could be mistaken when I say that Ron had me by about .03 in the BAC.
Anyhow, Ron struck me as a really interesting and energetic guy, and was officially the first person from Destructoid that I ever met in the flesh. He kinda fit the blog in my opinion and I walked away feeling pretty good about the brief encounter. He offered to do anything he could to help SG. Yeah I met Ron Workman. F*ckin A.
Later in the year, as we were getting things going the way of Extra Life, we put out an appeal for the head of Mr. Jim Sterling, also of Destructoid for whom I have secretly harbored a blogger-crush, mostly because I am a huge fan of British humor…. sorry… humour. (Jim’s both huge and British) Within a few hours, two things happened. Jim posted a reply saying he was in for helping the kiddos, and my cell phone rang with Ron Workman on the other end of it, telling me that if I needed anything I should’ve just called him, because he’d love to help us get in touch with Jim and provide any sort of support of the cause or SG.
I was a bit confused, but very grateful that once again people I associated with Destructoid were so quick to respond to a pipsqueak blog’s appeal for help.
Yes, Destructoid and its people have been A+ awesome to Sarcastic Gamer from the word go.
Now, I find myself at a crossroads.
You see Ron, no longer with Destructoid, recently called out Sterling and alleged that Jim reviewed Halo Wars without fully playing the game. Jim’s been rather silent on the issue, but Ron’s gone so far as to pretty much call Jim a douche and a scourge upon Destructoid. There’s a lot more to it, but you can read all about that for yourself. Basically its kinda hard to ignore in the circles I travel, especially with Lono calling me every 5 minutes to tell me who said what. It’s like Desperate Housewives for wannabe gaming bloggers like us.
I feel like a kid who’s parents split up….
Ron, while certainly a bit eccentric, has been totally cool to me and to SG in our handful of interactions with him, while Jim has made himself extremely accessible to me personally, and performed an amazing feat of vocal endurance with the SingSterling Challenge in support of the kids at Texas Children’s Cancer Center. By all estimations both of these guys are good with me, and SG. Totally good. No beefs.
Now, Ron and Dtoid are going at it like the people in the bread aisle before Hurricane Ike hit here in Houston. It really saddens me.
This whole thing smells like the bottom of my hamper.
What the heck could have happened that someone who once bled Dtoid Green could now be so maddened by it as to attack it and its personalities so ferociously?
I can’t believe I am saying this, but Jim Sterling is the only person in this fray who’s not flying off the handle. Freaky weird huh?
At SG we aren’t without our own share of behind-the-scenes drama, but at the end of the day, normally, most of us realize we are talking about a frickin VIDEO GAME BLOG and are writing posts about VIDEO GAMES. I don’t want to think that if we were to hit a higher level of success with Sarcastic Gamer we’ll be facing divorced staff firing ICBM’s at other staff members. I can’t imagine pissing anyone off that much… over a f*cking video game.
Ron… Jim… Dtoid. Get a room. Nobody’s looking good in this situation, and despite Destructoid’s rough and tumble image, this type of public bitch slapping just makes everyone look like hoes.
You’re all better than that, in my opinion… an opinion that I openly acknowledge that nobody asked for.
SIDEBAR: Personally I wouldn’t blame Jim if he didn’t finish Halo Wars. I played the demo and it was all I could take. If a game is an abortion, why should you have to play the whole thing to be able to say it?
UPDATE: In response to the comments below, I would like to say that its probably a good idea to let the audience know what portions of the game you did play when making your evaluation… Sort of changes it from a REVIEW to IMPRESSIONS….
STERLING HAS CONFIRMED THAT HE HAD NOT COMPLETED Halo Wars, has since done so, and posted a more comprehensive version of his review.
Popularity: 1% [?]
I agree with the side bar. If it sucks so bad that you can’t finish it, then just say so and slap a number on it. Not many care about the number anyway and if they do, they can take into account how much of it that you played.
@Darkwonders
I am a Halo freak and I did not like this game.
For the record, not that I really care that much, I didn’t say that Halo Wars was an abortion… I simply meant that in general if you are playing a game and can’t go on because you hate it, I don’t have a problem with a reviewer saying so. Which isn’t what Jim did anyway.
Whatever. It’s Halo Wars. Its Video games. I’m hungry. Some Ramen would hit the spot right now. See that? Freeze-dried noodles just jumped in line over all of this.
Dude… How can you like Ramen??? This site has gone downhill… I mean Ramen noodles?
WTF. I’m leaving and I expect that you write nasty emails about me so I can reply back on my blog.
Bitch.
@RonWorkman regarding the killing a baby question:
If Jim Sterling kills a baby on Destructoid please feel free to freak out and raise a stink. THEN, I will write a post about how sad I am that someone I know killed a baby on a blog, and how sad I also am that someone else I know is making such a big deal about the baby killing.
By the way, are we talking about a human baby or an animal here? Cause I love veal.
Veal Raman? mmmm
@Lono We can’t all have your exquisite taste in fine cuisine. Perhaps if I threw some Grey Poupon on the Ramne you’d be all like “Hey now that looks like an impressive dish” and I’d be like “Yes it is quite extraordinary” and you’d be like “Can I have some?” and I’d be like “No” and you’d be like “Please?” and I’d be like “no”.
Then I would eat about a third of the ramen and throw it away because I didn’t like it and then someone would come and tell me that if I had just eaten ALL of the Ramen I would have felt differently.
@Doc: Well as a reviewer of fine cusine, you should have known that putting Grey Poupon on Ramen would taste like shit… So I fault you for not finishing it, which makes you an ass.
The Grey Poupon fanboys are right to call you out! I was right because Grey Poupon tastes like shit on Ramen and I was proven right when you threw it out…
I think I’ll pass on the poop-on…I mean Poupon.
Hey! Leave me out of this.
As a serious response to your earlier question of is an early review fair, I ask would GTA4 have got such positive reviews if people only played an hour or so of single player and no multiplayer? And would this not been a disservice to the reader?
Oriental Ramen is delicious. Also, it is insanely cheap, which makes my wallet happy.
Grey Poupon can go f*ck themselves! You’ve ruined Ramen for the last time!!!!
I told you! I told all of you!
@Lono
I expect that from you. Considering you did not even finsh the Ramen!
You never finish anything!
…at least thats what SHE said…
Do you see what the internets have turned into…
I didn’t even EAT THE FUCKING RAMEN!!!!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!
Honestly, I am tempted to cover some plain Ramen noodles with Grey Poupon. Though, when I was a child, I did create a gummi insect, American cheese, chocolate syrup and mustard sandwich. No, it wasn’t good. Just in case you were wondering.
@Havok
You have no right to say that sandwich wasn’t good, unless you finished the whole thing. Douche.
Man I love veal, but it is hard to find around here.
I remember when me and my single buddies would make Ramen Burritos, Ramen sandwhiches, Ramen Stir Fry, Ramen Spaghetti… never with Grey Poupon. That actually wouldn’t have been bad on the sandwhich. The burritos were just Ramen with lettuce and hot sauce.
Now veal with grey poupon, that sounds good.
Editor’s note: After taking a bite from theaforementioned sandwich, I decided to throw it in the trash. To amend my error, I would like to say that the first bite was atrocious, but I am unable to comment on the tastiness of the rest of the sammich. I hope that I might be forgiven.
Frankly I don’t really care, if Sterling didn’t finish Halo Wars, he shouldn’t have posted a review, but like Doc said, it’s a video game. It’s his unfinished opinion, and at least he came out and admitted he didn’t complete it. Most other “scandals” are never resolved for one reason or the other.
The review was fairly neutral, and I think the game is going to sell nethertheless. This isn’t a big deal, and everyone needs to chill the heck out.
He explains the review on the recent Podcastle Episode 29, he said he played it halfway thorugh, and he was not the original reviewer, and he said it was a good game, but he dosen’t like RTS’s in the first place.
L O Freaking L at this whole thing.
“Then I would eat about a third of the ramen and throw it away because I didn’t like it and then someone would come and tell me that if I had just eaten ALL of the Ramen I would have felt differently.”
That line just made this entire abortion of a comments thread worth the time I spent reading it. Well said, Doc.
@ThomasJay… Ditto!!
I love how everything stopped as soon as Doc chanegd the subject! everything after that comment, was brilliant!!
Wow! Halo Wars, noodles and a sandwich filled with all sorts of crap! This thread has it all! 5 stars!
Look, I understand that the comments have completely been diverted from the subject, but I have to say I think Ron Workman has been made out to be the bad guy by a few people, which is wrong. I know Jim helped a lot with Extra Life, and even if he was my idol in life I couldn’t deny the fact that his rview was retarded. It might have been a bit mroe acceptable if he had played most of it, but only up to chapter 2 and no online? That is unacceptable.
Because your post about “Review Snobs” appears higher up on the page, I read an commented on that article first. But now I begin to wonder whether that in itself was an attack on Ron aswell.
I love this site. I love everyone in the community and everyone who takes the time to write articles for SG. I love the people from Destructoid, and all the Gamercast Network sites.
But I CAN’T ACCEPT THIS.
@T3mpus Fugit: Who attacked Ron? Doc is friendly with both. He has no rooting interest in this. I think that the whole melodrama caused doc to have an opinion on reviews in general, which prompted the Review Snobs article, but you’re way off base if you think ANYBODY on this site has attacked RW.
@Lono: I don’t mean on this page, but about a day later the “Review Snobs” article seemed to attack Ron Workman in a not-really-mention-what-I’m-talking-about-but-hint-at-it kind of way.
Maybe I took it the wrong way, but it seemed that an article about people who say games should be completed before they are reviewed kind of came at a bad time after this article. Maybe I’m wrong though :S
Jim is wrong for writing that review without actually having played more than a few hours.
Workman is guilty of being incredibly hard to work with. This is obviously apparent when he cries like a baby multiple times, and can’t resist constantly bashing Dtoid at every waking moment. He’s constantly watching for them to slip up; it’s childish (wonder why you were forced out).
That said, it doesn’t mean all of his thoughts are unmerited. Jim is a bigger douche than Workman. He thinks he’s so great, lies, and builds himself up as a “common man”, when he’s really just an elitist, and will never ever change that thought process.
Niero is quasi lying about Ron to make his site look good. What’s wrong with that? It’s good business.
Other than Niero trying to defend his baby, everyone else is wrong here. It’s a really sad state of affairs. Workman can’t move on from Dtoid; he’ll always be watching them like a child. Jim will never grow up and accept responsibility for being an asshole. Get ready for countless more “Dtoid sucks” posts by Workman: they are coming.