Jimquisition: Go Fish

[669]

Completely agree on this subject. This definitely shows the problem with the whole elitist "neckbeard" PC Master Race gaming community we have to deal with who act like a bunch of 14-year olds on Call of Duty. People spend more time and effort on hating rather than actually discussing games they like.

Phil Fish might be quite eccentric and annoying at times, he spend a good portion of his life, money and tons of effort to make FEZ just to deal with a bunch of bitchy idiots hating on him left and right.

This is why people don't take the gaming community seriously, if we're ever supposed to evolve from beeing looked on as a bunch of cheetos-eating, Mountain Dew loving troglodytes, people need to start beeing a bit more open-minded and act like adults.

 

[Fiairflair]

I really appreciate that my first contact with this paricular issue was what Jim presented. I only knew Phil Fish by name and I think if I hadn't listened to what was said here I would have gone away with a flawed perspective.

Thank you, Jim.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

And idiot insults a huge part of the gaming community.
The gaming community strikes back.
Fish goes full retard and attacks an ever bigger part of the gaming community.
The gaming community launches a nuclear strike.

Geee... I wonder why he doesn't have a skin thick enough... maybe because he tried to fight against the internet.
An asshole got what he deserved.

 

[Kai Kuhl]

So, Ive read the tweets and I really pity that Fish guy (also Ive never heard of him before). WHAT-THE-FUCK is wrong with that community? I always thought that all that immense verbal abuse in the gaming community was because of the emotional detachment through digital cimmunication and/or 12 year old german kids, but I really doubt that now. I'm afraid that dumbing down of the gaming industry in the last years has attracted all the assholes. That Fish guy seems to be his own character, an oddball, how artists seems to be sometimes. And that dark hole of the internet just hammered him till he broke. What is wrong with you people? Where do you have the moral superiority to judge people like that? Just because it is easy to insult someone over the internet makes it right, just because you are so many it is a good thing to impose your will on a person? Are you people lacking any courtesy? Thanks, you shown me the reality of that whole new digital media crap. I mean, whats the point in using your right for free speech, if everything you said that is out of norm can kick off an avalanche of shitstorms?

 

[Dragonbums]

I was never the person for sending death threats to anyone. Never will.

I agree with you on this video Jim. Not for Phil Fish however. But just for the aspect in general.

If Fish was simply a non inflammatory guy who got a lot of shit for a couple of things here and there that aren't that big of a deal then I could sympathize with him.

However the man looked for trouble just as much as his critics did for him.
When he stated his opinions, it was often times said in the most childish or obscene ways that you knew it was going to bite him in the ass hard.

Honestly, he was just as much as the fuel to his own fire as were the critics setting him off.

I don't think I know that many indie devs that get nearly as much shit as this man, and it surely has nothing to do with Fez itself.

Fish has landed himself in a spot where his personality has a bigger reputation than his game.
The same way you said you won't support the creator of Earthworm Jim because of his views, is the same way people don't support Fez because of the egotistical and abrasive manner he says things.

So no, I don't sympathize all that much with Fish's situation because 80% of it was brought on by himself. His attitude online was basically pouring honey on yourself and wondering why all the bees keep crawling all over your body.

 

[Dragonbums]

So you're saying that he announced a game before any planning or allocation of resources? Before any ideas were put to paper? He just woke up one day and decided to announce a game?

Sure...that's exactly how game development works...

What happened was, you tried to be funny and succeeded in making yourself laugh, and then tried to back up your joke with actual comedy. Well done.

This is Fish we're talking about. You have no idea what his process is like and it's not like a half finish game is a game. It's a half finished game.

But that's the thing, no one knows what his process is. No one knows why the previous game really took five years to make. It's still a mystery and may always be such.

A game maker, makes games. Plural, not one and a half games.

In the indie movie he said it took so long because he wasn't satisfied with his pixel art and redid everything 3 times. Each one getting better as he himself got better at pixel art.

 

[Dragonbums]

Fish doesn't necessarily need thicker skin, or at least wouldn't, if he's stop running his mouth off and actively trying to piss everyone off. If he wasn't notorious for comments like Japanese game devs suck, or my personal favorite "suck my dick, choke on it," this wouldn't have ever been a problem. Fish brought the abuse on himself, he has nobody to blame.

You know, someone being a jackass doesn't justify other people being a jackass to them.
Be the better man.

That's one of those things that works better on paper then in practice. If no one ever fought back against his idiocy, it would have likely been much worse then it ever was. What is it you suggest people should have done? Ignoring him was the closest thing to validation Fish got, and he knows that. He's the kind of guy that pat himself on the back after every tweet before he even got responses. It would have just been encouraging for him not to face any contrary thoughts or opinions. While I certainly don't encourage or approve of things like death threats, the man taunted the world on more then one occasion. The world is certainly not a hive mind, but Fish attracted the attention of people just as deranged and sensitive as himself, just with opposing views. What happened to him was the only logical thing that could have happened.

So when Anita Sarkesian received both rape and death threats is it likewise her fault? Because that's basically the argument you're trying to present. People who attract negative attention, like Fish or Sarkesian, bring it upon themselves with their controversial views.

I'm sorry but that's not logic I subscribe to. The choice to be an asshole on the internet is still a choice.

Phil Fish acted like a complete ass long before his internet harassment came to bite him hard in the ass. Fish has said things that greatly upset certain people in the gaming industry. On top of that he feels that he is the god send of videogames and is just as mature as the supposed "immature" critics.
His hate has NOTHING to do with Fez. His hate has EVERYTHING to do with himself more then anything.
Am I saying he should get death threats?
Hell no. Nobody should.
However those who have followed the man for a while will know he isn't exactly a saint.

Anita on the other hand doesn't deserve half the shit she gets.
All she does is sit in front of a camera with a couple of graphics staff and make 30 minute college 101 level research videos. Due to them being college 101 levels of research it's clear it's either going to be flawed, boring, or sucks.
Most people would ignore that slosh.

Yet the gaming community surprises me once again by actually making the likes of Anita videogame enemy #1. Right up there with with every other female character being tit monsters being #2 and DRM being #3

 

[Dragonbums]

Phil Fish acted like a complete ass long before his internet harassment came to bite him hard in the ass. Fish has said things that greatly upset certain people in the gaming industry. On top of that he feels that he is the god send of videogames and is just as mature as the supposed "immature" critics.
His hate has NOTHING to do with Fez. His hate has EVERYTHING to do with himself more then anything.

Your experience may vary but my exposure to Phil Fish has been via Indie Game the Movie, and in that film he just looked like a tightly-wound guy trying to make games. Not an asshole. Not someone full of himself. Just someone with a huge amount of pressure both from himself and from the world around him. And all that says to me is that he's invested, very invested, in what he's doing.

Again. Phil Fish and Fez have become two different entities in their own right.
When people talk about Fez you will hear almost nothing but praise.

However when you talk about the creator himself often times you will hear those same people talk about how much of a major ass he is.

On that note, my first exposure too was the indie movie.
However it is foolish to base your opinions of someone based on one film. Especially when it was more focused on Fez and his work then his infamous online personality.
Which is why basing his entire persona on the movie leaves for missing pieces to the whole puzzle. It hardly tells the full story about his online behavior.

 

[Dragonbums]

Your experience may vary but my exposure to Phil Fish has been via Indie Game the Movie, and in that film he just looked like a tightly-wound guy trying to make games. Not an asshole. Not someone full of himself. Just someone with a huge amount of pressure both from himself and from the world around him. And all that says to me is that he's invested, very invested, in what he's doing.

Again. Phil Fish and Fez have become two different entities in their own right.
When people talk about Fez you will hear almost nothing but praise.

However when you talk about the creator himself often times you will hear those same people talk about how much of a major ass he is.

On that note, my first exposure too was the indie movie.
However it is foolish to base your opinions of someone based on one film. Especially when it was more focused on Fez and his work then his infamous online personality.
Which is why basing his entire persona on the movie leaves for missing pieces to the whole puzzle. It hardly tells the full story about his online behavior.

So why is "online behaviour" an acceptable source to base your opinion on a guy whereas a documentary is not? If people were criticizing his online behaviour, what your saying would have merit, but they're not, they're criticizing the person.

Given the choice, I would base my opinion of a person on their appearance and presentation in a film than I would on what specific tweets people latch onto. Neither gives a whole representation of the individual, but the film at least can, if presented objectively, give a sense of who he is in the everyday life.

Because the documentary itself did not focus on Phil as a person in any way. They only showed his work and how much he had to get done on Fez. That was the whole point of the documentary. The work that goes into indie games.
In the video where people asked about his online harassment, he took it upon himself to act like a saint that is confused over why he gets hate all the time online when the reality was he is just as much of a twat as the people annoying him.
That is liking saying "I think honey bees are the most dangerous creatures on the planet because the one documentary I saw that really talked about them revolved around people getting swarmed and killed by bees" disregarding the fact that such things rarely happen in real life and they are often beneficial to the environment.

 

[Lightknight]

In the indie movie he said it took so long because he wasn't satisfied with his pixel art and redid everything 3 times. Each one getting better as he himself got better at pixel art.

Five years.

 

[Nicolairigel]

Wait... since when was Fish the victim?

I guess I just don't know enough about the issue, all I saw was the Annoyed Gamer's attack and Phil's childish and horrible-minded twitter feed. But from what I saw, that guy deserved to be attacked, unless all of his statements where supposed to be a joke, I have no sympathy for an asshole like that.

I mean, was there some other reason he was getting so much hate either than he was being an ass? If not, than I'm honestly glad he left the industry.

 

[Dragonbums]

In the indie movie he said it took so long because he wasn't satisfied with his pixel art and redid everything 3 times. Each one getting better as he himself got better at pixel art.

Five years.

Pixel art ain't fast and it certainly ain't easy.
Especially when you are basically a one man team at the point he was on Fez.
And from what I understand it is anything but a small game.
So when one person puts that much effort into making gorgeous pixel art and redoes it a bunch of times to make it even more detailed then the last- I wouldn't be all that surprised it took him that long.

 

[MeisterKleister]

Fish couldn't differentiate criticism from insults. I've had to fire artists and creative people for the same problem. Every time I point out something wrong with a piece, they would assume I was insulting their abilities and disrespecting them. Everyone is not perfect, you skills are not perfect. There is always room for improvement. Your wrong about Fish not needing thicker skin, part of that is just common sense. Fish has none.

That was the general feeling that I got too.
There is constructive criticism and there is personal insults. I think it's very similar to how people think video game reviews can be objective, because they can't differentiate opinion from facts and they don't think that other people disagree, but that they are 'wrong' objectively.

I have to admit that, except for the fact that he developed Fez and recently told some guy on Twitter to 'kill himself', I know nothing about Phil Fish. I was hoping Jim would have been a bit more specific about when, where, why and how exactly Fish was getting harassed and the history that lead up to this.

I was and still am under the impression that telling someone to 'kill themselves' is inexcusable in pretty much every context, especially if it's just an online discussion, no matter what they did or said, and I am a bit disappointed that Jim didn't mention this, because I assumed this was a big part in the public outrage.

It's not the fact that he bit back, it's specifically about *how* he bit back, was my impression.

 

[CheckD3]

I can understand why, but at the same time, if he really enjoyed and had a passion for games, he'd instead use the criticism to grow as a creator and a person, instead of letting it drag him out of games.

Though I really don't understand sending death threats, especially to people who create games or whatnot. Unless you admit that it's full of subliminal messages that will turn children into racist, sexist sinners who will act on these feelings and commit crimes while feasting on the flesh of fetus they took from a woman, video games are just something used for entertainment purposes. Good or bad, they're meant to put you in a world other than your own, and not every game does for everyone. I don't think that playing a bad game, or even being an eccentric person who is trying to suck up to your boss or defend things that we don't fully understand is deserving a threat to your life or lively hood.

I think that criticism and hate speech should be classified. Criticism is a good thing, as it points out flaws in a way that isn't meant to destroy the passion of someone, but show things that they may have missed, in an effort to help them grow past their flaws, or alert others to the issues so that they can make decisions on purchases. Hate Speech is an attempt to hurt someone, whether or intentional or unintentionally, in which it has no merit or reason other than to fufill a need inside the one saying it. Not liking something based on opinion, and stating why in a polite manner, criticism; saying you hate something because it's faggy and that anyone who likes it should f- off because they're a bad so and so (trying to calm on the bad language), there's no need for that other to make that person good.

Finally paragraph, making it quick. When I first watched Jim's videos, the first few didn't capture me. It was what I was seeing and reading everywhere, about the same topics and very bland. However, I gave him a chance with the "Weird is not enough," and saw that, whether it was my own, or a large collection of criticism, he found a way to do what he was doing, but overcome the (then) flaw of being a white stone on white sand by making his opinions and topics stand out. Anyone who said that he was just stupid, or whatever they said, had no real reason to make that post and state that opinion, since it served no purpose. I don't get why people who have opinions that serve no purpose share them, as they just create drama, and destroy good things.

 

[Jennacide]

Fish doesn't necessarily need thicker skin, or at least wouldn't, if he's stop running his mouth off and actively trying to piss everyone off. If he wasn't notorious for comments like Japanese game devs suck, or my personal favorite "suck my dick, choke on it," this wouldn't have ever been a problem. Fish brought the abuse on himself, he has nobody to blame. And honestly, what Marcus said wasn't even that harsh, especially given some of the shit that comes out of his mouth. All he said was what most of us are thinking: If you didn't have a comment on the situation (Xbox One self publishing change), then just say "No comment right now," and leave it at that. Don't get indignant over it.

Also should point out, nobody forced Fish to respond to the abuse he got, but he did, constantly. I've never liked Fish personally, because he's only ever made Fez, and believes it was a revolution for indie games, when it's anything but.

It's wonderful to see people unironically endorsing Sharia law on an Internet forum in the year 2013.

What does Islam have to do with this? I'm confused by your comment, and not even sure if it's meant to be a jab or a compliment.