I was gonna post something to this effect in slightly more detail, but rather than risk sinking the thread I'll just say I agree with this.

Well given that Cloudflare's reputation is on the line here there will be an investigation, so we'll know soon enough if it is indeed some sort of hoax. Not much point speculating about it till then.

I can't say I care for him venting against the entirety of the gaming community as opposed to the people who hacked him in his final tweets. I wish him well in whatever he decides to do next, maybe it will bring him some measure of peace.

Well said, I'll stop reading now.

Anyone care to tell me what the reason was that he was supposedly attacked in the first place? I'd appreciate it.

@ectoplasma: Doing that risks getting the thread locked, and derailing it into being about someone else. Google "Quinnspiracy". And don't talk about it once you find out.

@thevgamer said:

If there is a discussion to be had about it, it's not really the right time to have it. There's really not a lot of actual conspiracy going on (let's not get too deep into the details here), and anyway this has gone beyond "haters gonna hate" into criminal territory. The topic itself is just being used as a diversion, if anything it devalues the discussion.

This annoys me. Fez is a stunning game and Im gutted there wont be a sequel. But Phil needs to never use social media. Ever. If you have a little nero complex and cant handle criticism then social media aint for you.

Woah, I've read through this thread and barely anyone are justifying bad things...

After looking into this... okay, yeah, on board with all of the above. Goddamn.

I'm still not sure what to make of the Zoe "scandal" because I spent way more time than I should have trying to figure out was was going on and still felt like I wasn't even able to scratch the surface. I'm thus incapable of forming an opinion of my own. However, from all accounts the retaliation is insane. I'm pretty sure 4chan (or any) hackers could focus their attention towards way more important global issues if they really wanted to feel like they were making a difference. There aren't a whole lot of people in the world who deserve their lives being ruined over a stupid, scandalous-yet-ultimately-insignificant thing. I don't care what you think about Phil or Zoe... this is fucked up beyond measure, and an act applying the same twisted logic as what America would broadly label a "terrorist."

If someone could explain to me what either Zoe or Phil did that could ever warrant their lives being destroyed, please do. I'm being completely serious. I can't connect the logic dots with the information I know.

Nobody should get doxxed and possibly have all of their information exposed. Including Phil Fish. Including Zoe Quinn. I would have preferred to see a better way for Phil Fish to just leave completely, because he comes off has quite the teenaged gossiper with a huge soap box, but I still don't have any empathy for him at all. Phil was still an asshole to a Twitter user who suggested he was sexually harassed, and still an asshole to the majority of gamers. Most gamers aren't what you continually despise, Phil. It's ironic that he became what he was against.

Sorry to whoever at Polytron, that's about it.

I don't think Cloudflare is even a hosting company, are they? They are a CDN and DNS provider. So the claim going around that they have anything to do with anything that supposedly happened is pretty much bullshit. I'm guessing someone found one little thing, thought they were being clever, and then revealed themselves to be total idiots.

I think this whole situation is a great example of how dangerous it is to seek public attention at any cost. Phil Fish is probably a good guy when he's not on the internet getting attention. But his motivations for most of his behavior seems largely to get attention. It seems like this whole situation involves some very troubled people who are fairly sick in similar ways and as a result are somewhat sympathetic towards one another.

I'll say this: If Phil suffers from what I think he suffers from, I can say from personal experience that he is not a lucky man floating over a sea of drama and lapping it all up. If he's struggling with the urges and reactions that it seems he is, it's a fucking terrible way to live. It makes you look and feel like an ass and an idiot and it's never done because you're happy or looking for a laugh. But the fact is he seems to seek out public attention, to throw himself into harms way time after time and he's starting to impact the lives of other people now, in potentially very significant ways. There's no way to excuse either side of this situation, regardless of who those sides are in the end. No one deserves personal information to be thrown across the internet. But Phil does not behave in a way that would prevent that kind of behavior being leveled at him.

And if Phil really did have any part in all of this, all that really needs to be said is "that guy needs help," because it takes a very sick mind to take part in behavior like that. I don't like the guy and I won't excuse his behavior. But as someone who thinks he might be in a position to know what causes his behavior at a very intimate level, I just felt the desire to communicate that. More than anything, I hope he was just responding the way he did to the situation that began this whole thing for relatively tame reasons, for everyone's sake. If he's got the issues I suspect he does, I could see the other personality involved in this whole thing being extremely unhealthy contact for him.

It matters because it can all be used to harass and make life difficult for that individual. If your previously unknown address becomes public knowledge in the middle of a scandal where people are out to harm your quality of life, it absolutely will be used. There are a lot of really fucking gross examples of shitty things being done with such information on the internet. You can't just up and change your address. A phone number is a pain because you have to get a knew one, but an address, emails, associations and worse family/friends are all data points that can be really harmful in the wrong hands. And the internet is pretty much made of the wrong hands at this point.

How the hell are the majority of the reactions to this here about you not liking Phil Fish and not about the absolute human trash that does shit like this to people? Seriously guys?

@l4wd0g: The most troubling thing is that from others in the industry, just looking at my twitter it's either "You people are monsters for this" or no mention of it at all. I've lost respect for a few people because of this. I understand it's a risky thing to talk about. But if it's done in a professional, non-biased manner, what is the issue? I have yet to see this apart from some of TB's post. I really want to load up twitter and GB and not see a mention of this any more.

Hmm, I've seen plenty of responses criticizing Phil, criticizing the people who'd react this way to him, and both.

@gunslingerpanda: I looked into it, and I'm not seeing any heinous an/or utterly evil acts. He said some foolish things on twitter at one point? Send me a PM about it.

She was asking for it!!!1

Anyone who blames Phil for this is kind of a garbage human.

Alex Lifschitz, a guy I personally know and trust, has been on Twitter documenting this whole shitshow. It sounds like it's real rough.

@EthanML I think you are inferring things that arent there. The vast majority of posters are saying that while they dont really like Phil Fish, it sucks that this happened to him. People are being honest. Please dont misrepresent what people are saying, thats how arguments start and threads get locked.

I'll never understand why people feel the need to try and mess up other people's lives. Especially not people they don't actually know. It's just so fucking pointless and depressing.

Also after reading what happened with Quinn, I really don't understand how there's any discussion about who is in the wrong here at all. (I'm not talking about people here, by the way, but about the Quinn discussion as a whole.)

Everyone is.

@jarmahead: He did come back on Twitter to gain attention, for Ferguson. He already quit Twitter and he came back with good intentions.

@jarmahead: I have to say this is one of the most eloquent responses on the topic yet. Bias removed, personal agenda=non-existant.

I don't understand why there is the "personal life" defence when a lot of what the masses have a problem with was done in the public spotlight. I was debating this with a friend and he said they deserve privacy, I agree, but is it private to have personal twitter accounts and the like easily accessible? Anyone in this position needs to face the fact that they are now in the public spotlight, the second you have influence on something and have a following, you are in the public spotlight.

Keep your private life as private as possible, have a personal Twitter and Facebook for that kind of thing, for opinions that may lead to insane shitstorms. Have official social media for interacting with the public. Or be responsible and moderate yourself a bit.

It is naive to think that the happenings of Twitter is not public. Text messages, private messages and personal documents? Those are private. Things sent out for the world to see are not.

Wow, there's some wankers out there. Leave him alone you fucking punks.

@jakers11 I think social media is so entrenched in the way we organise our lives now that people tend to either forget that they are telling the entire world when they tweet, not just their followers, or they just end up not really caring. The generation coming into their teenage years now have a very different understanding of what privacy is than I did growing up. They do not feel the need to keep things private that I would never have dreamed of sharing when I was a kid. The world is changing in some very weird ways.

The amount of people in here, especially those on the first page, whose initial reaction was to criticize Phil or somehow claim that he had it coming are truly disgusting. And for the deranged few who think that he leaked this information himself-- set up shop at InfoWars and soak it in.

Not only is it continually upsetting and disappointing to see how much this community mirrors other shitty communities in video games, but it's especially distressing to see that kind of shit from a mod as well.

Consider giving empathy a try. This community and video games as a whole would be better for it.

@gunslingerpanda said:

Which was? I am honestly curious about it, since I didn't heard of any utterly evil action he or Quinn pulled of recently to justify this response...

I'm ashamed to see many people here still acting like he deserved it. The dude was hacked for having opinions. However shitty these opinions were, he does not deserve thing like this at all. And yeah, I'm beginning to hate gamers too. Gamers culture, which I'm part of, is completely fucked up and we need to change it but too many people seem happy about how childish we are.

@splodge: That's very true, as someone fairly young I wish that more people understood what is and isn't acceptable. Just because it is online doesn't mean that you can refuse to be responsible for your words. PR is a skill that not everyone has. I am glad that the main group of industry people I follow are professionals about their jobs and interacting with the masses. Even if I don't agree with what they are saying, it is said in a way that is easy to respect.

I'm locking this thread, it's just devolved into people complaining about people complaining about this, etc.