Jim Sterling goes fishing

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

Destructoid: Jimquisition: Go Fish

No, Escapist videos are never embeds. Gents.

Well I liked the episode. It was interesting to find out about Jim's personal work life. Jim's thoughts are pretty interesting, sometimes.

Well I guess people don't like Jim here..

Well have you seen the latest episode? @immortalsaiyan

I really dislike the persona that Jim Sterling gives off. I really hate it, actually.

However, sometimes his points are pretty good and the actual ideas that he wants to get across are worth hearing once in a while, so I'll give it a listen. Just don't expect me to be a happy person when it's over.

I really dislike the persona that Jim Sterling gives off. I really hate it, actually.

However, sometimes his points are pretty good and the actual ideas that he wants to get across are worth hearing once in a while, so I'll give it a listen. Just don't expect me to be a happy person when it's over.

EDIT: OK, so I listened to it. He dropped his usual annoying persona and "talked straight", so to speak. He just said his piece and was done. And while I agree with him, I can't help but remember Phil Fish's obscene digs at the Japanese games industry and PC games. Every single party involved in this affair, from Fish to Marcus Beer to the people harassing them both, could have handled things better, but at the end of the day Fish could have been a more decent person beforehand. If you want to criticize the Japanese games industry, write a blog with some proper criticism instead of using your soapbox to announce an opinion as equally qualified as a Youtube comment.

Hey, guess what. Don't be a dick, and people are less likely to be dicks to you. I don't remember people like Todd Howard or Ken Levine or John Carmack saying things like that, and I also don't remember any reports of them losing their shit on Twitter or Facebook, or quitting the games industry for a while.

Oh, yeah, and the people on the internet who constantly harass creators and people who put themselves out there in public? Those guys are the real worthless fuckers. No matter what someone says, you don't send death threats to people. Why would you want to do that? If, by chance, someone is reading this and has actually done that, what do you get from that?

People like him don't need more publicity

I'm glad Jim did a video addressing this. I agree with his stance on the matter that Phil could of handled it better but it is understandable how it comes to this being attacked so often. I can't imagine being subject to such abuse. Granted his opinions are often controversial and stated brashly but he by no stretch deserves this ire by those whom disagree.

Jim is spot on in this video.

Jim is one of the few guys who could talk about a subject like "internet abuse", the guy got a lot of hate when he started on Destructoid. Every piece he wrote there were always a lot of mean and negative comments towards him, I'm glad all that hate on him is pretty much gone.

@believer258: I believe Fish was simply cutting the tension at an awkward Q/A with his 'dig' at Japanese games. It was intended as a joke to jump start the conversation that everyone on the internet took out of context.

Still think Phill acted like a baby.

It's like he screamed "FINE!" at the internet and slammed the front door three times.

I don't think we should be talking about this anymore... And yet here we are. Sigh...

Seriously?

Are you saying "did Phil Fish seriously say that Japanese games suck and PC games are like spreadsheets?" or are you criticizing me for bringing that up?

He's not wrong about everything he said, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone act as crass as Fish when often times not provoked. He has very strong opinions but does a hell of a job of communicating them in just the worst possible ways. The whole Japanese games comment people bring up was just his honest opinion that he phrased in a way that was unnecessarily rude and insensitive. This is one of the prime reasons people send him more hate than other online personalities, and it's something that he doesn't seem to be learning from at all.

So hey Phil take a break, collect yourself, and consider adapting a filter for the things you say. The internet is full of idiots and that will never change, so there is no reason to give them extra reasons to bother you on a daily basis. I know it might seem like censorship and at one point I too just said whatever I felt like because I strongly believed that people would either accept that or not but thats who I was. In the end though, you start to realize that it doesn't really work that way, not unless you grow an infinitely thick skin.

I think he probably takes issue with you describing them as obscene, but that's just a guess. I rather like a number of Japanese games and PC games, but I'm not offended by the idea that someone doesn't like those things. I'd hardly describe his comments as obscene.

It is so weird to see Jim out of character.

They may not be "obcene" but they sure as shit are condescending.

He basically agrees with the trolls he's talking about, he's just able to convey the message in a much friendlier and detailed manner. He's talking about how he has learned from experience and changed (literally growing up), he doesn't just shout a derogatory "grow up!". I'm not gonna say none of the comments made towards Fish are just pure bile, but from what I've seen a lot of it is doesn't necessarily have ill intentions. Most people just don't care enough to write more than a sentence or two (if even that), not make an 8 minute long video. It's the unfortunate side-effect of sms, twitter and comment fields, we get used to only being able to make a snap comment then move along.

I guess "obscene" is too strong a word, but you don't make comments like that without expecting some backlash. It's especially disappointing to see someone in Fish's position say that when he could have pointed out some things that he felt were issues in the Japanese games industry with more tact. "Tact", really, is what this whole thing is sorely lacking.

Sounds like a really bad joke to me, though.

Ok but really are a few comments (yes public comments on twitter but still, a few) worthy of a constant stream of garbage? This is the problem I have with this whole idea that "oh well Phil said this he should know what's gonna happen" as if he's to blame and not the people hiding behind their computer saying whatever vile thing comes to mind. I don't have a problem with people not liking the guy, plenty on here think he's a tool and that's fine because the majority on here don't act like children. But that's not the rule.

That's the point Jim's trying to get at, yeah Phil went crazy overboard but how much has he been putting up with from how many sources? I don't care how condescending he was in those couple of comments he's made over the last couple years, he doesn't deserve what he's gotten in response. If that were the case then every one of those immature turds yelling vile things deserves 100 times back what they put out. But they don't get that cause nobody cares what they have to say, nobody even notices them except for whoever is in their crosshairs.

This idea that, 'oh they're anonymous so we can't do anything to them but YOU should know better then to provoke them' is a real bummer.

@demoskinos: Maybe I just have the "thick skin" people talk so much about these days, but I just don't have it in me to get indignant about them.

As a non-Japanese person, I suppose I have more stake in the PC gaming comments, but even still, it's just an opinion. To be honest, I can see where he's coming from there.

I'm used to looking at screens from short distances for long periods of time, but not everyone is. I play games almost solely on my PC, but I can see why not everyone would enjoy playing games at a desk which is likely not in the living room. I can see why someone would prefer the experience of sitting back on their couch to play games in a space where they can entertain friends. Sure, you can do that with a PC too, but the people that have a gaming-ready PC in the living room are still a minority.

I'm fine with dealing with driver issues and hardware incompatibilities. I've met a lot of people who aren't. I don't think that makes them bad people.

Also, I'm a software developer. The software I work on happens to have aspects that look rather a lot like spread sheets. As it turns out, PCs are pretty good for those.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just good at playing devil's advocate.

@believer258:

@thesoutherndandy: Yes, that's true. I agree. I said as much in my first post. But when you are a public persona, you do have a certain responsibility to be decent with everything you say. When you break that, when you come out and say something dick-ish, you have to realize that you're inviting a lot of hate. Even if it is something as simple as a misplaced, badly timed sentence.

Again, the trashy excuses for human beings that spewed a constant stream of bile toward Phil Fish are the real bad guys here.

I always thought that guy was an American.

Edit: Wow all that stuff about having a thick skin and a hp bar sounded tacky as hell.

@thesoutherndandy: @scrawnto: Well, like I've said before nobody deserves to be treated like shit but realities are different from what should be. If you're a public figure every little thing you say is going to be hyper analyzed and torn apart. If you say something that could be taken in the wrong way it will and people will flip out at you. Even the call of Duty guy David Vonderharr had rape and death threats sent to him for doing nothing but posting small minute changes to the sniper rifles in Call of Duty Black Ops. So sadly, it doesn't take much to set people off.

@demoskinos: @believer258: Yeah I know no matter how reasonable you try to be there's always gonna be asshats and if you're prone to the occasional inflammatory comment that number's just gonna be higher. Stupid internet. That's why I like it here. For the most part we avoid that stuff.

I used to hate Jim, but he's definitely not the same person that he used to be. Been enjoying hearing what he's got the say these days.

@dallas_raines said:

@believer258:

Shocked that with how many Phil Fish threads we've had this hasn't been posted once.

I've never really liked how Phil acts in public, but it's not my place to judge another human being. With that, I'd say I completely agree with every point you made, everyone involved could have handled this situation maturely if they had just taken a moment to think about what they were doing. An unprovoked attack, met by an unprovoked attack, should not be answered by the internet slinging more unprovoked attacks.