Jim Sterling

Jim Sterling is an English-American freelance video game journalist, critic, pundit, and wrestling personality. Prior to becoming independent in September 2014, through crowdfunding, Sterling was the review editor for Destructoid, and an author for The Escapist. His active YouTube series are "The Jimquisition", "Jimpressions", "Industry Bullshit", "Direct to Video", "Oh My Gawd Hype!", and "Commentocracy"; his discontinued series include "The Videogame Show What I've Done", "Boglinwatch", "itch.io Tasty", and "Nitpick Theater".

Sterling was born in London, England, where he lived on the poverty line for much of his childhood and was psychologically abused by his mother's lover, a Hells Angels outcast. This abuse is what prompted him to take on the "Jim Sterling" name, saying that he would have had it legally changed, if not for his legal issues. In a video from November 2015 on Fallout 4, when talking about the polyamorous relationship options he stated that he is "not a monogamous guy, nor [...] a straight one either." He openly identifies as pansexual and queer. In June 2020, he became a naturalized United States citizen. In August 2020, Sterling came out as nonbinary on Twitter, saying he accepts all pronouns.

The Jimquisition is a weekly YouTube video series in which Jim Sterling discusses current issues surrounding video games, primarily involving unethical business practices in the video game industry, of which he is an outspoken critic on. The series originally started on Destructoid's YouTube channel and was later moved to The Escapist's channel, before being released on Sterling's own channel. Direct to Video consists of his playthrough of recently released, and often poor-quality, early access games, while Oh My Gawd Hype! has him discussing anticipated upcoming games. His main gameplay series is Jimpressions (formerly known as "Squirty Play"), where he discusses his impressions of a recently released video game while showing his own pre-recorded gameplay. Another (albeit rarer) series, Commentocracy, consists of Sterling playing a flamboyant 18th-century aristocrat character called "Duke Amiel du H'ardcore" (a parody of "hardcore" gamers), who in a tongue-in-cheek manner reads disgruntled, haughty or otherwise trolling online comments on the topic of video games.