James Stephanie Sterling is an English-American freelance video game journalist, critic, pundit and YouTuber. Prior to becoming independent in September 2014, they were the review editor for Destructoid, and an author for The Escapist. Sterling is noted as one of the main examples of a YouTuber achieving success through crowdfunding.
Sterling presents The Jimquisition, a weekly YouTube video series in which they discuss current issues surrounding video games, primarily involving unethical business practices in the video game industry, of which Sterling is an outspoken critic. The series originated on Destructoid's YouTube channel and was later moved to The Escapist's channel, before being released on Sterling's own channel. Sterling's main gameplay series is Jimpressions (formerly known as "Squirty Play"), where Sterling discusses their impressions of a recently released video game while showing their own pre-recorded gameplay. Sterling has often spoken against sexism in gaming, and has been open about the fact that their position on this subject has slowly evolved.
In November 2014, Sterling announced that they were leaving The Escapist and intended to seek funding for their work independently through Patreon. On a 2020 episode of The Jimquisition, Sterling stated that they had departed The Escapist after the publication had refused to publish their negative review of Assassin's Creed Unity, citing that parent company Defy Media was afraid of damaging any sponsorship opportunities with Ubisoft. Sterling also stated their desire to go back to writing articles and recording podcasts, which they were not able to do since leaving Destructoid. Sterling currently maintains their own website, The Jimquisition, in addition to producing a podcast titled "Podquisition", which is shared with fellow British game journalist and founding host, Laura Kate Dale. The third founding member/co-host Irish musician Gavin Dunne had his final permanent appearance on episode 250, leaving on good terms to pursue his passion for music while stepping away from engaging with the negativity, stress and anger of the game industry, saying “outside factors, for example having my music blacklisted from being promoted by certain companies due to my involvement with the podcast. My music is my heart & soul, my life's work. It is too important & hard earned to have it be impaired due to other peoples' controversies & it's also not fair to have that hanging over their heads every time they want to speak about a controversial topic.” Gavin was replaced on episode 251 with Conrad Zimmerman who had previously worked alongside Sterling at Destructoid, co-hosting The Dismal Jesters, Boston’s Favourite Son, The Spin-Off Doctors, and FistShark Marketing podcasts.
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