Serial Suer Strikes Again

Erik Estavillo, the litigious gamer who has gone after Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and Activision Blizzard (among others), has turned his sights on the gaming press.

In a complaint filed January 25th in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Estavillo listed GameSpot.com, IGN.com, G4TV.com, GameInformer.com, 1UP.com, Joystiq.com, Kotaku.com, GayGamer.com, QJ.net, SarcasticGamer.com, MMORPG.com, NBC, FOX and DepecheMode.com as defendants.

Plaintiff wishes to charge all previously listed entities with libel, as “many of the articles [on these websites] are full of intended insults to the plaintiff.” Additionally, Estavillo is charging QJ.net and SarcasticGamer.com with worker discrimination. Plaintiff claims that emails with these two sites will show that they agreed to hire him as an intern, or unpaid writer. After “a week of silence” from both sites, both indicated an unwillingness to employ Estavillo.

GamePolitics and The Escapist were two sites labeled by Estavillo as being “fair and neutral” to the plaintiff, resulting in the pair not being sued or charged with wrongdoing.

DepecheMode.com is also being charged with barring plaintiff from their forums, subsequently stopping him from “expressing himself in their forums via his First Amendment Right.”

Estavillo is seeking $10,000 per article written “ingenuously” against him and $5,000 per message board thread (specifically mentioned in this category are DepecheMode.com, MMORPG.com and IGN.com).

Estavillo is also seeking to be unbanned from the DepecheMode.com forums.

GP: While Mr. Estavillo continued to remain active in recent times, we sensed here at GamePolitics that it was time to cut down on, or eliminate, coverage of him.

Erik did indeed inquire about an internship here at GamePolitics as well. Digging though sent items, here is what we relayed to Estavillo exactly:

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but one reason I was cautioning you against all these lawsuits is that your credibility has been somewhat compromised, even as your name becomes "famous." I guess it's a trade off of sorts.

What’s a little unnerving about the lawsuit is that Estavillo, in emailing us at least, continually insinuated that it was OK for us to make fun of his statements and he really seemed to enjoy being labeled a “serial suer” or “professional plaintiff,” whatever it took to get his name out there and to become more “famous.” I suppose we are just helping his cause at this point, but it was thought that perhaps we could provide a little insight into the situation.