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. Their active YouTube series are "The Jimquisition", "Jimpressions", "Industry Bullshit", "Direct to Video", "Oh My Gawd Hype!", and "Commentocracy"; their discontinued series include "The Videogame Show What I've Done", "Boglinwatch", "itch.io Tasty", and "Nitpick Theater".

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

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 they are an outspoken critic. 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 their playthrough of recently released, and often poor-quality, early access games, while Oh My Gawd Hype! features Sterling discussing anticipated upcoming games. Their main gameplay series is Jimpressions (formerly known as "Squirty Play"), where they discuss their impressions of a recently released video game while showing their 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.