Jimquisition: Go Fish

[Mahoshonen]

Nice video, Jim. I do think the internet can use some more happy pills.

I do hope you have the self awareness to realize that you are sometimes part of the shill choir you are commenting on. While I don't think you've made any death threats, I'm sure there are at least a few that feel you've been unfair to them.

 

[templar1138a]

I don't care in the slightest about Fish or Blowhard or any of that crowd. I just want to say, Jim, that I believe this is the first all-talking-face Jimquisition since the very first one, and you've grown up a lot since then. Good on you.

Off-topic: NFL fantasy football can kiss my ass.

 

[Zhukov]

What exactly did this Fish guy cop it for anyway?

I remember hearing some vague mentions of him being a bit of a knob, but nothing specific.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Go Fish
In this extra episode, Jimquisition lends a rambling mouth to the controversy surrounding Phil Fish and his dramatic exit from the videogame world.

Watch Video

You know where I expect to hear death threats from? Over-zealous religious, political and military people. Not a fucking gaming community, or any gaming community for that matter.

You know how much I tolerate death threats? None. Whatsoever. Anyone low enough to wish, think and/or vocalize their opinion of death upon another human being, something that time will inevitably do to all of us anyways, is, to me, just another pile of redundant pile of protoplasm incapable of putting first rational thought and emotion before their words. These people are not beyond forgiveness, but the amount of change needed to sway my opinion of them requires more than what the average person is capable of.

No matter your opinion of Fish, or of anyone else for that matter, he does not EVER deserve to have such hatred and bile thrown against him. Criticize his words or actions to your heart's content - such things help all of us to see and/or think things a little differently than what we alone would've seen - but the absolute moment that criticism turns into threats of violence with no resounding collective voice to attempt to correct that movement, is the moment we ALL are guilty of ignorance.

I may not agree with what the man says or does, but nothing he does or will ever do in the gaming industry will warrant what attacks were levied upon him. Not a goddamn thing.

 

[Colt47]

I like being one of the million who shower praise more than one of the million that shower hatred and flaming arrows... and sometimes napalm.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I can relate very well to what you're saying. It's happened to me both IRL and on forums. When I started going on forums more, I was someone who never backed down and could argue for too long, because that's how I had been brought up and handled my problems IRL. But on the internet a lot of people are both incredibly dumb, and doesn't have anything to do with their time, so they could just keep at it too.

These days I've turned off quotes on the forums I visit, and if I ever do reply it's because I randomly saw it. It's almost never anyone that wants to have an intelligent conversation though, but are instead looking to start an argument, so I try to write a reply to piss them off/provoke them, and then I simply walk away. I don't even check what they replied to me. I win.

I think the easiest and best solution is to just ignore them. If he hadn't spent a lot of time on twitter/whatever, he probably wouldn't have known what they said, and it wouldn't have happened.

I agree that they're allowed to snap too.

 

[bravetoaster]

My problem isn't with Fish needing a thicker skin.
I just have no sympathy because every time I heard him make a statement, he's acting like a ponce.

No one is perfect, we are all assholes. Fish is no more of a "ponce" than someone that calls him one for being unable to live up to their incredibly unrealistic standards of what a human being must be.

Sure, no one is perfect, but most people aren't assholes. If that's how you see the world, then I'm genuinely sorry for you and the awful people you have to interact with. Most people are generally quite good. They can have bad days, bad moods, various triggers/berserk buttons, but if I stop a random stranger on the street and ask for directions, I'll probably have a positive interaction at least 99% of the time.

I've never seen anything sympathetic about Phil Fish. He may be (and, from the praise Fez has gotten, probably is) a fantastic game designer, but, as a person (as far as I can tell from his role in Indie Game and bits here and there on the web), he's a ****. That said, I don't quite get why anyone gives a damn about him, at least not to the point of harassing him online. If you don't like someone and you don't have to deal with someone, then... don't.

Related: I had originally hated Jim's stuff on the Escapist--I don't know if it was him, me, the topics he talked about, or some combination of the above--so I simply didn't watch it. I later gave him another shot and found that he's pretty goddamn awesome. (Edit: Thanks for hanging in there and making a great bunch of shows, Jim.)

 

[Reeve]

Let's not confuse legitimate criticism of opinions and ideas with blind personal attacks.

Keep calm and Thank God For Jim.

 

[Callate]

I don't think my opinion of the Fish/Beer escapade has changed much- it wasn't terribly different from what Sterling said at the beginning to begin with.

([link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.823359.19934086[/link], if you really care.)

But this Jimquisition did somewhat illuminate, to my mind, Jim Sterling- and perhaps the reasons for the persona he's adopted for doing shows like this one.

Hey, Jim.

First, don't ever feel a need to apologize for doing a show like this one; it was really interesting- dare I say, touching?- to hear you speaking off-the-cuff and from the heart.

Secondly, I've had days when just coming back to confront replies to comments I've made was stressful- and I'm not playing to a tiny fraction of the audience that someone like you (or, to be fair, Fish) is. Certainly there are benefits to getting a tall soapbox to express your opinion from, even if you don't get paid for the privilege, but easy it's not. It doesn't just take a "thick skin" which might imply a dumb numbness to what anyone else might say or think; it requires courage. And that's before it gets to the point of death threats.

Thirdly, though I can certainly get snarky, I hope anything I've said regarding the Jimquisition has been constructive, not merely abusive. It's never been intended otherwise. I really appreciate the show and the amount of thought and work that go into it.

So, thanks.

(Insert fat joke here to pretend I don't actually care.)

Carry on.

 

[DirkDeadeye]

Every time I see this person on twitter, or in the news..he's acting like a foul mouthed diva. I saw him make those comments in GDC, which totally validates the notion he's a smug, holier than thou little prick. No, I won't sympathize with someone who doesn't have a mental filter..whose outwardly rude, most likely not on purpose..but still. I won't excuse that because he made a game. If I acted like that in public, or at work, I'd be fired, or punched in the mouth. Rightfully so..I was being a fuckin tool.

You got a behavioral problem? Yeah, a lot of us do. Do the responsible thing FOR YOURSELF, and sort it out.

All I read about is why this guy catches so much venom and hatred..

Most of it is because of things he has said. I mean, he made a good fucking game. Nobody hates him because he made a good game. They hate him because he acts like an asshole.

I mean, have we all forgotten why he's received so much negativity? He doesn't handle getting knee deep into shitholes he dug himself into well, at all. He just digs himself deeper.

Now he's going to blame the industry.

The only who has MY sympathy at the moment for shit like this Vonderharr. He didn't do anything wrong, say anything, act the fool. He made a change, that a lot of people didn't like, and lashed out with death threats. Kind of like what Phil did with Marcus Beer, told him to kill himself.

And I've watched hundreds of hours of futurama, I didn't get that reference.

 

[SonicWaffle]

You know what I find the saddest part of this whole thing, in terms of how it reflects on our community? That Jim's closing message was to think about the feelings of the people you're harassing.

Not "don't harass people, you cockbiscuit"

Just "try to remember that the person you're sending death threats to has probably had a pretty rough day"

It's depressing that we're so used to the idea that we can give people shit whenever we want for whatever reason we want, even guys like Jim who tell us how pointless it is accept it as a given that it's going to happen. That's a pretty bad state for the gaming community to be in, guys.

On a slightly more positive note, thank God for Jim. You were the answer to a trivia question on Twitter and won me a copy of Company of Heroes, which I'm enjoying very much. Ta!

 

[___________________]

Negative things are more easily remembered than positive ones. And the ones that want to insult and threaten someone, because it makes their day better somehow, are always more vocal than the people who like you. Which leads to people feeling overwhelmed. Anyway, I hope you never leave Jim. Fuck the wankers.

 

[1337mokro]

I personally don't believe this guy for a second, I'm talking about Fishy here, not Jim. I think this is all just a big old marketing thing. Stir up controversy, stay relevant, take fake break, release game to jubilation of victorious return, profit.

This man is too abrasive a person and too replaceable to really garner this much attention otherwise. I was pretty much unaware of 100% of the stuff he had said, the stuff said about him and this general debacle until a friend sent me a picture about the Minecraft thing a while back also involving Fishy.

In reality not much will be lost when he leaves, there have to be at least 100 different Fishies in the ocean dying to grow a pair of legs and walk into the indie gaming jungle. Maybe the next Fishy will know to just ignore his twitter and to not just grow thick skin but instead practice the art of ignoring stuff. Like me, who is now going to ignore the rest of this stuff and wait for his prediction about this being all a media stunt to come true.

Life is to short to worry about other people shooting themselves in the foot about hateful things other people said to them.

 

[franksands]

Jim, thanks so much for taking time to make this extra episode. I agree with you completely, no one withstands insults forever and sometime they will snap and it's not going to be pretty. I loved Fez and would love to see Fez 2.

I hope you still do the Jimquisition for a long time to come and know that trolls aside, you have a great community that supports you and cares for your opinion and well being. Thank God for you.

 

[Verrenxnon]

Jim, I recently commented that your videos tend to ramble a bit. This video, however, was wonderfully concise and laid out points efficiently and intuitively. More of the same, please C:

 

[PuckFuppet]

To cut to the chase, people are terrible but not _that_ terrible.

 

[zerabp]

Thank you Jim, I had very little knowledge of Fish but I enjoy Marcus Beer's work thoroughly so it did affect my view of the whole incident. Your episode today convinced my that I was wrong to jump the gun. I have not expressed my opinions on this matter until now though so at least I didn't do any harm to those involved. This episode has further convinced me that Thumper had it right all along "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

 

[CaptainOctopus]

"-Developers are so lacking in personalities a lot of the time"

Yep that will probably happen when you are turned into a mindless drone, working on projects without vision, passion or creativity, making generic crappy game after game, endless shitty sequels, awful remaks and piles of depressing dlc.

I can really understand why some people from time to time get vocal in an industri where so much bs i going on. And I guess it's easy to sometimes lose focus on what really matters.

Anyway Jim I hope you stay the course, you are one of the good ones who probably have a greater affect on this industry than you might think.

 

[Miyenne]

Well said, Jim.

It drives me nuts how on the internet, so many people are absolute assholes, but when someone retaliates everyone gangs up on them calling them an asshole. It's just a vicious cycle.

It's bullying, plain and simple. And no one ever comes out of it looking good; neither the bully nor the victim. It's just a mess no matter what.

Fish responded badly, yes, and he had no right to say what he did. But he is only human, and many people are very quick to jump down someone's throat when they dare to show their humanity; their faults. As if the people who drove him to it themselves have no faults of their own.

We all snap at some point. I don't agree with what Fish did, but I understand it.