This is why my response to people that define themselves via hate towards a specific thing or person for not meeting their entirely assumed expectations is always to challenge the validity of those expectations. Sometimes I get to do that in nice ways (friend zone "complaints" are getting harder and harder to remain civil at). Sometimes, like when people think berating Phil Fish is a smart way to appear cool in front of an indie game developer they've just met, or people try to find reasons to hate Anita Sarkeesian to score social points with their fellow insecure internet males, I just want to get them to feel really uncomfortable ASAP. I'm not a troll, and fuck them for assuming that I am.
The fact that you can construct this argument from a rational and thoughtful perspective, even without actually knowing the person involved, means that people who hold otherwise are actively choosing to, at best, perpetuate negativity and justify hate crimes at worst. If anyone is going to defend their own anger, it had better damn well be constructive anger that's worth perpetuating.
So if you've said stupid crap about Phil or Anita to me and I've been snippy or cut you off in person, that's why. Be glad I was having a bad enough day not to engage properly.
Really great video. I always felt Phil Fish got a really bad rap pre- and post-Fez' release and that he became the straw man for a much larger problem within not only gaming but society as a whole.
Great vid. Though I never quite *got* the magnitude of the Phil-bashing, I can certainly understand how the internet makes and breaks "fame" whimsically.
Boxxy, Flappy, Sarkeesian, some of the other concept-embodiers that I can remember. Some learn to harness that, some can't stand to be near that.
That was a good one. I didn't know much about this story.
I'm not sure I understand this bizarre fascination society has with 'celebrities'. Personally I can't stand it. When people say things like: "Did you see [name of famous person]!? They're so stupid/awful/amazing/synonym-for-significant-above-mortals!", I can't help but feel, "Who are you to judge? Your life is just as screwed up. The only difference is camera angle and honestly, probably effort." Why don't people work on themselves instead of damning themselves to eternally stare dumbfounded up at the those they've elevated above themselves?
/mini-rant, sorry
You know, when I see a flashlight shone on the gaming masses out there, I can't help worrying a bit; "Are these the people I'm creating for? Why would I want to have anything to do with such beings? Should I have rather sought employment in the military - maybe they'd one day let me near 'the button'?" I'm kinda hoping that's a loud, immature minority and that there are a greater number of reasonable people. Say it's so...?
I have a question after this video that I can't comfortably answer.
I've met Phil Fish, though very very briefly. I found him to be a sincere, though somewhat humourless guy. Though this definitely an brief impression rather than an insight from spending a lot of time with him.
This video makes the claim that we don't know Phil Fish. But we do know that Phil Fish said a lot of incredibly awful things about other people publicly. We definitely do know something about where Phil Fish draws the line in terms of online conduct.
Personally, I judge people who lash out in public fits of road rage to be flawed in character. Personally I abhor the antisocial behaviour that happens in games like DOTA. I also think that trolls and flamers in Youtube comments (and elsewhere) embarrass themselves.
I want to add a disclaimer before I go on:
I really don't want to stimulate more hate towards Phil Fish, and I don't want to be perceived to be sympathetic with the group of people who have directed that hate at him (or directed that hate at the idea of him).
I get that Phil Fish is a person, and the internet is a mob. And condemning them equally has more negative effect on Phil Fish / Polytron than it does on the internet. In fact condemning them equally would never have any discernible effect on the internet.
And I don't think what the indie-gaming community has done towards Phil Fish is justified. I think it's unfair, and kind of ridiculous, that his slightest move was being watched and reported in the harshest light.
But he did behave just like an asshole would didn't he?
I think the video wasn't saying Phil was or wasn't an asshole, but rather just commenting on the how he became the symbol of the celebrity asshole rather than the person.
So yes, he behaved like an asshole would, some of the time. But asshole wasn't all of him, only a part of him, but the media didn't acknowledge any other part of him other than "asshole + celebrity".
Anyway yeah I don't like people who behave like assholes, but then we are all only human and we can all err. I don't think I need ever to write anyone off for behaving in a certain way in a certain situation.
Reasonable people aren't newsworthy so you'll never hear about them. The 1% loonies will get 90% of attention because they shout. Extreme views too.
I was wondering more about the audience. I mean when I see how the internet mob behaves and the behavior in a lot of online games, like DOTA as BlackShips mentioned, and unbelievable shit like some of the reactions to feminism, I can't help but wonder about the nature of the populace - which happens to be our audience. But gaming is huge, this has got to be the few, right?
Personally, I judge people who lash out in public fits of road rage to be flawed in character.
So, just on this point, this is actually a fundamental attribution error. Basically, when we evaluate others we're likely to overemphasis the role of the person's own character (ie: asshole nature) while ignoring situational factors (ie: being hounded by the press, in the case of many celebs - not necessarily true in this case).
This, coupled with human tendency towards a confirmation bias (only noticing information that confirms that he is indeed an asshole) makes this video a great study of human behaviour.
If I was convinced that, no matter what I did, my actions would always be taken at their worst... Well, I'd give up and behave like an asshole to protest. I'd rail against it and I'd call people out that attacked their idea of me directly. Fuck them for judging.
I think the important thing that's missing in "evaluations" of Phil's "behavior" is the complete lack of time and context. Saying he behaved unacceptably after already being backed into a corner by relentlessly attacking commenters? Not useful, all it does is fall into the same trap that the video is pointing out in the first place. Phil received hate, tried not to change because of it, couldn't prevent his actions being demonized, gave up trying in protest and got more demonized.
I don't think that judging the demonized by how they behaved AFTER dealing with demonization for ages is a worthwhile thing to do. Especially not when any "facts" are transmitted through the narrative of how much this person is already an asshole anyway...
@dislekcia I don't really mean to argue here. I wish there'd been a way for the internet to have been a less toxic place for Phil Fish. I wish he was still making games and that he hadn't gone through what he went through.
I also think (like @Dammit suggested) that the information in the video has a ton of great information about human behaviour.
Phil received hate, tried not to change because of it, couldn't prevent his actions being demonized, gave up trying in protest and got more demonized.
But I can't actually sympathize with the statement above is the thing. Not changing in the face of plenty of evidence, and stubbornly taking actions that in the past have caused obvious self harm, isn't a positive thing.
I would say that the media / internet acted predictably when it came to its reaction, and the demonization, of Phil Fish. I would expect the internet to behave precisely the same way (but with a tiny fraction of the magnitude) should any of us behave like he did.
So I'd think that the thing to learn from the saga isn't so much "Phil Fish is an asshole" (though I'd contend that anyone who thinks posting phrases like "suck on my dick and choke on it" is at the very least at that moment acting the role of an asshole), but rather "Phil Fish was appallingly naive in interfacing with the internet".
And if we didn't know it already, which I think most of us here do, it adds further evidence of the necessity to always retain a civil tone, and to always try convert negative conversations into positive ones. Even when our natural tendency is to do otherwise.
But that's not news really. The whole thing was a horrible tragedy, with a lot of people to blame, but, I think, none more so than Phil himself.
(Also just to be clear, I think Anita Sarkeesian is a totally different situation. She has received hate from the internet, but she received that hate by behaving in a way that had a clear benefit for society. That can't be said of the actions Phil Fish took that triggered his internet-hate).
(Also, just to be clear, I'm good friends with several people who are in some circumstances assholes. It doesn't mean I approve of that behaviour when it occurs, or necessarily that they do. And this is fine because they aren't assholes to me, and perfection isn't a prerequisite for my friendship).
But I can't actually sympathize with the statement above is the thing. Not changing in the face of plenty of evidence, and stubbornly taking actions that in the past have caused obvious self harm, isn't a positive thing.
Hmm. I'm not trying to argue either. I think I understand what you're trying to say, it's basically: "Be so nice to people so often that nobody can get angry at you and you'll be okay" and yes, I agree with the basic idea of that. I agree that everyone should try to be cool people to others, and reign stuff in when someone tells you that maybe you're not being awesome right now. And yeah, road rage is stupid and fixing the mental loopholes that let us get angry at people as things instead of humans is a great way to be a nicer person.
At the same time, this whole thing smacks of victim blaming to me... Yes, it would be perfectly valid to argue that Phil wasn't super nice to people when he said "suck on my dick and choke on it" but my point is that that happened after the feedback loop was already in place, busily turning him into an asshole no matter what he did.
The feedback loop (and this is the part of the video I really liked, where the guy started talking about how the internet is different) locked on to old things Phil had said on a public forum. Things that, when he said them, weren't evidence that he was a horrible person. Things that, at the time, made him friends and even helped the people whose games he was critiquing. Things that, when viewed in the light that you gotta find evidence that this guy is an asshole, can be spun to make him look like an asshole. Things that, no matter how much he responds to comments and tries to be "nicer" can't be un-said - they remain there, as fuel for the hate feedback loop, while it's slowly building momentum until it can turn even the nice things you say and do into reasons why you're horrible.
The only thing you can do when that starts to happen is go totally quiet. Go into hiding and delete everything in the hopes that it's not already backed up somewhere. But that's only possible if the loop is known to you - if it's happening somewhere that you can't see it, or it's happening in response to a big piece of media that you're involved in because it's a great way to raise awareness for your game... Well. You're basically fucked.
Because once that loop takes hold and you start being a concept, then even being involved in a seriously interesting discussion with Jon Blow and generally being an interesting source of game design comment and making a good game is magically turned into "Phil Fish is a racist because we're taking 1 thing he said out of context because we hate the guy, hahaha". The whole point of that video was to show that the "reasons" people talk about are all waaaaaaay down the self-justifying chain of well-this-is-all-fucked-now. You probably can't even go back and dig up those original utterings that started the hate loop, or if you did, you wouldn't recognise them as obviously bad because they pale in comparison to the goaded "choke on it" and the overblown "racism". In fact, as @dammit pointed out, even the nice stuff simply won't register anymore because it doesn't confirm the hate narrative...
So no, I don't think it's fair at all to imply that this could have been avoided if Phil had been nice enough. Or that he didn't try to be nicer properly. He wasn't "asking for it", he was communicating with friends and people with shared interests online. He wasn't being given useful or reliable feedback to change obviously unacceptable behavior, he was bullied because being slightly different to standard North American forumites made him an easy target.
And if we didn't know it already, which I think most of us here do, it adds further evidence of the necessity to always retain a civil tone, and to always try convert negative conversations into positive ones. Even when our natural tendency is to do otherwise.
The reason I think about this so much is because AAA studios have the solution: Don't let devs talk. Passionate, driven devs are the worst people to talk to press because they're not guarded all the time, they can get frustrated with builds or go insane from business stress. PR people stay on pre-planned marketing messages, that's how you stop Dennis Dyack or Derek Smart from sinking your game before it launches.
And truth is I'm kinda terrified of this happening here. Because anything we say here as feedback could easily be spun into something "too harsh" or "not nice enough" for someone, somewhere online. I can guarantee you that anyone here that gives honest, useful, constructive, friendly (!) criticism could have some part of that criticism spun around on them at any time. And that's not a thing I want to see happen.
And before you say it's not likely to happen to us out here, remember how weird stuff got with LazyGamer before DD launched. They actively started twisting stuff we'd said online because they couldn't wait for the game to come out. They were looking forward to a thing we were making, and turned that into reasons to dislike us... I mean, the argument was laughable. Thankfully they weren't a dominant voice in the narrative of the game, so it didn't all turn to crap, but even though I tried to manage that as carefully as possible (like, I never told anyone to choke on anything, ever!) it still made working on DD incredibly shit for a few weeks right before launch (because you're always totally relaxed then, right?)... More studying of this sort of thing seems like a good idea to me, because I don't feel that it's very controllable with "the right behavior".
In particular we had been mentioning the phrase "No emotions, just explosions" a phrase Rock Paper Shotgun had used when describing our game. We thought the statement was a hilarious summary of Broforce, and 80s action films like Commando (1985), and the statement was to us a parody of our own development process.
But the journalist took it to mean: "Free Lives wants more dumb games and more anti-intellectualism and Free Lives want fewer games that have an emotional impact to be produced".
This wasn't really much of a stretch. We had basically said that. We might even have meant it like that. And seeing it through that lens we realized this was not a great thing to say in public. It compressed poorly. And at a time when indie games are finding great new ways to explore evoking emotion in games, and with so much uncharted territory in this design space, our timing for this statement was particularly shitty.
So we sat down. Had a talk about it. And resolved not to express that sentiment in that manner. We had a good think about who we were, and how we wanted to be seen, and we made some changes to our attitude towards ourselves and Broforce. At least I did.
We had caused some damage to ourselves, but we were going to do better in future.
Point is: I really believe that it's possible to perceive when you are coming across to your audience poorly, and I believe it is possible to adjust course.
So far so good... though I would lose some faith if things did spin out of control due to no conceivable fault of ours.
I guess this is where we disagree (and is perhaps the crux of our disagreement). I don't think that getting into a position where "You're basically fucked" is going to happen unless you are naive or careless or both.
Though I totally agree that more studying of this sort of thing is important. I'm not trying to silence anyone. I don't think there is any hard evidence for "being fucked" being inevitable or avoidable. But I have more faith in my ability (or the ability of those I work with) to steer our public image than @Dislekcia does his, and as such believe that others are empowered to do the same.
(That anti-Broforce article had other criticisms in it as well, and I've made other changes in course based on them. I was just singling out one easy-to-relate lesson we learned)
I think the thing to take away here is that we all need to be responsible as communicators. This both means in actually verbalising (written or spoken communication) and body language as well as in the listening side. Understanding that as human beings we will rely on our heuristic short cuts to figure out what is happening in any social situation can be the first step. Taking a step back from your immediate reaction (which, by all accounts, may seem perfectly rational but, science has shown time and again that people like to think they're rational but sadly, we are not) and gathering more information before making a judgement is key.
Asking questions until you are sure you understand the person who is talking to you. There may be cultural, social, emotional and mental differences between you and that may make interpretation tricky - even when you're speaking the same language. This is especially important in terms of "game journalism." We all know that money is made on these sites through clicks so the information that's headline news is often just the most entertaining. And that's our fault. We're not questioning this, we're not questioning the algorithm through which we see certain information in our Facebook feeds (research here has shown that news we get through Facebook reinforces our own beliefs, regardless of what those beliefs are, because Facebook reacts to what we react to, thereby creating a nasty closed loop), we're not questioning each other. The more questions, the better.
As a communicator, you also need to ensure that you are doing your best to communicate exactly what you want to say clearly. You are responsible for everything you say (not every interpretation of it) so saying "suck on my dick and choke on it" is going to get a bad reaction because that's what it's intended to do. It's an antagonistic piece of communication. If you meant it as a joke, you're responsible for communicating that clearly, as best as possible. So, as communicators, thinking a whole lot before you communicate (post, sms, email, rant out loud, gossip) is incredibly important.
One of the downsides of instant communication is that we take it for granted. We do it quickly, and we do it badly, and we're super surprised when things turn out a mess. More thinking, more communication (with context and information), and more responsibility from both sides would certainly go a long way.
If you want to change the way communication happens, and what journalism in the indie game development field looks like, then you guys are the ones to do it. You're voting for every article you read, comment on, post or share. You're also downvoting all news that you ignore, don't comment on, post or share. Something worth thinking about.
Knobe is arguably most widely known for what has come to be called "the Knobe effect" or the "Side-Effect Effect". According to Jones (2009):
Rather than consulting his own philosophical intuitions, Knobe set out to find out how ordinary people think about intentional action. In a study published in 2003, Knobe presented passers-by in a Manhattan park with the following scenario. The CEO of a company is sitting in his office when his Vice President of R&D comes in and says, ‘We are thinking of starting a new programme. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment.’ The CEO responds that he doesn’t care about harming the environment and just wants to make as much profit as possible. The programme is carried out, profits are made and the environment is harmed.
Did the CEO intentionally harm the environment? The vast majority of people Knobe quizzed – 82 per cent – said he did. But what if the scenario is changed such that the word ‘harm’ is replaced with ‘help’? In this case the CEO doesn’t care about helping the environment, and still just wants to make a profit – and his actions result in both outcomes. Now faced with the question ‘Did the CEO intentionally help the environment?’, just 23 per cent of Knobe’s participants said ‘yes’ (Knobe, 2003a).
This asymmetry in responses between the ‘harm’ and ‘help’ scenarios, now known as the Knobe effect, provides a direct challenge to the idea of a one-way flow of judgments from the factual or non-moral domain to the moral sphere. ‘These data show that the process is actually much more complex,’ argues Knobe. Instead, the moral character of an action’s consequences also seems to influence how non-moral aspects of the action – in this case, whether someone did something intentionally or not – are judged.
Fame/celebrity status is something we give to each other as human beings. How we use it or, reflexively, get used by it, is up to us. I feel like Fish had a distinctive personality when dealing with the forums of that indie dev website and after being catapulted into the limelight more, didn't make what some would say were necessary adjustments to said personality. He was in a more public forum now and, obviously, the rules change because the things you say aren't open to only a small subculture but a larger one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae is some very light reading which maybe overlaps with some of what we're talking about here. We do our best to portray ourselves as close to who we really are, within the constraints of the society or culture we're in.
I think as a whole gamers and game developers are usually a more vocal group, not in a negative or positive manner here, just more vocal, more willing to voice opinions on matters or speak up if given the choice. How we choose to portray ourselves or the things we say, reflects on us as a person. Everybody comes under fire at some time in their lives and how they respond to being shot at is indicative of the kind of person they are. When we're anonymous in an online game or behind tinted windows in our cars, mud slinging occurs, but if we're face-to-face with people or using our Twitter as a vehicle for our social communication, then the rules change accordingly.
I think as a whole gamers and game developers are usually a more vocal group, not in a negative or positive manner here, just more vocal, more willing to voice opinions on matters or speak up if given the choice.
Why do you think this? Do you think that's because you feel you are or because you've enveloped in a community of these people where naturally you only see people on forums who are vocal (by its nature, you won't be seen on a forum if you're not vocal)? Introducing availability and representative heuristic ;)[i] [/i]
*understands availability and representative heuristic*
I think this as a result of my experience in the past, my time spent in forums, these sorts of communities (inside and outside of gaming) and some work that I've done on the topic in the past.
I often doublecheck my thinking so as to avoid biases such as these. I should maybe have specified further in this regard as to where they're more vocal. I'm not saying these individuals are verbose or overly vocal in their everyday lives (i.e: in person) but online/in-forum/in-game because of the ease-of-use which these communities typically offer, the tendency to talk increases. In these settings, it's much faster and easier for us to communicate as it's just a few touch types away.
That being said, as a corollary, just because it's easy doesn't mean everybody's doing it.
Great video, i think we can all agree that we hate nickelback :P (it is strange that it's more acceptable to hate a band of 4 members than hate an individual).
Great video, i think we can all agree that we hate nickelback :P (it is strange that it's more acceptable to hate a band of 4 members than hate an individual).
Though I totally agree that more studying of this sort of thing is important. I'm not trying to silence anyone. I don't think there is any hard evidence for "being fucked" being inevitable or avoidable. But I have more faith in my ability (or the ability of those I work with) to steer our public image than @Dislekcia does his, and as such believe that others are empowered to do the same.
I've been thinking about this a lot...
I remember that article. Your response to it via twitter was pretty damn good, just linking to it saying it had some interesting points. I actually engaged with its author - he didn't know that you weren't from the US yourselves (and thus that your perception of US patriotism and culture was very different to what he was painting it as) and while he seemed to listen to my points, I don't think his perspective changed much.
But the key thing here for me is this: All the same information that he used to come to his conclusion IS STILL OUT THERE on the internet. Your changing course hasn't removed that quote from RPS. I'm certain that you guys (being as awesome as you are) aren't adding to that image anymore, but it's still possible to cherry pick past information to support that interpretation of the game if that's what someone wants to do.
All it takes is one really big voice to champion that message and not want to actually engage with you to "fix" it at all and that's the start of a potential feedback loop that heads in the same direction as the one Phil got caught in. I mean, what if that negative article had been posted on Polygon or Gamasutra instead? And we know from what @Dammit's been adding to this thread that any course-corrections after that article would be more likely to be dismissed by readers and commenters simply because it differed from the message they wanted to hear.
I feel like you're right in that the best defense against this sort of trap is to be as nice as possible to everyone and not give anyone reasons to want to dislike you. But the whole way that Lazygamer turned negative on DD because one writer liked the game so much they couldn't stand waiting longer (but didn't want to play the beta that they had access to), coupled with the way that there's always just so much negativity online when you try to do nice things for players that are often requested (like launch a Linux version or release DRM-free on GoG) that it feels much riskier engaging with people who have regular "voice amplifiers".
Being nice is always a good idea. Communicating responsibly is always smart. Managing damaging events as they happen is a pretty engaging game to play, but I feel like it's a lot less well balanced than I used to think it was. I'm South African, while that's a good thing most of the time when it comes to publicising QCF's games, I'm well aware that I'm different to the majority of the press and audience for the game. I want that difference to be exciting and interesting, not alienating and rewarding to bash on. Sometimes I feel like that's often not my choice to make.
@dislekcia I've been wondering about this a bunch as well.
In our case that article (that was critical of Broforce) didn't align well with many people's experiences of Broforce. If that article had come from a more widely distributed and more trusted source it probably wouldn't have had a much different result.
It kind of came out of the blue (I'd been expecting to be called on the weak satire, but not with such aggression). And I think if that article could have had more traction we then would have seen it coming (in tweets about Broforce, or on the Steam forums, or in Youtube comments, or Let's Plays, or from our peers).
So I think that article about Broforce is different in a lot of ways to the Phil Fish articles (besides us being way less famous). The biggest difference being "game developer is bad at satire and has bad political views" isn't an easily transmitted gossip piece. So the article may have been a poor example for me to bring up in the first place.
But it did worry us at the time that the information that produced those conclusions is still out there. It still worries me, but it's not something I can do anything about. In all honesty I think we are still adding some fuel to that fire, but less overtly now (and we have yet to add any depth to the satire in the game itself, but that's coming).
But besides feeling in control of the way Free Lives communicates, this is other reason why I think the internet is less likely to strike randomly and start a negative feedback loop on Free Lives:
At Free Lives we spend a lot of effort trying to win over people. We try to be friendly pro-actively. It's not just about being nice in our communications, we try conform our business operations to the shape that our audience perceives as "nice". We're patching bugs as fast as we can. We're not charging more than our peers for the product. We're visibly improving the game for those that own it (though I worry it's not fast enough). We're doing our best to keep up with forum posts. We're trying to be funny and approachable. Essentially: We're actively trying to produce advocates and friends amongst our audience.
We're consciously trying to build a brand that is liked (not just make a game). If we're at all successful in this I think this should make it very unlikely for a negative perception of us to take hold and grow.
I think now that we're published by Devolver it's a little harder to avoid being seen as money-driven. But a positive side effect is that Free Lives is now vastly more protected against a negative news cycle from being with Devolver (they have way more marketing smarts).
I don't really know how Polytron ran its marketing. But I'm pretty certain it wasn't always "players first" (in particular there was that incident with not patching the save game bug, which highlighted Microsoft's indie-unfriendliness, but still screwed players).
Like @Dammit mentioned about Knobe's law. People are much more selective about who is hero than who is a villain. Maintaining a positive feedback loop takes a lot of effort. Sometimes it even takes sacrifice.
You're right, you can't control people and you certainly can't absolutely prevent some crazy from writing something crazy about you. All you can do is be above reproach in all your communication so that the non-crazies who come across a crazy will take their firmly held belief that you guys are nice/great/awesome guys (based on zero information except some awesome tweets and a cool game) and completely disregard crazy's information. It's really about creating the belief that you want in people and this is done through constant good and responsible communication.
When crazy does write crazy stuff, then you have the choice to ignore, engage, respond, defend or spin. It all depends on the situation. Generally, a response like @BlackShipsFilltheSky did is the ideal way to deal with this. Engaging or defending is likely to make the situation bigger than it was to begin with and trying to spin a story could make you look like the bad guys trying to manipulate your audience.
You've also got to remember that the internet - and people - have an incredibly short memory. What's important to you may not matter much to the people who buy your game after about a week. Think of how much more they have going on in their lives and what's really at stake for them when some crazy writes something off about your game: pretty much zilch. So, chances of people getting on a crazy's bandwagon when they have enough other experience to say that you're awesome is pretty damn small.
Phil Fish put himself in a situation where it was easy for people to get on that bandwagon.
I thought this is relevant here because Mike Wilson has done things in the past that have generated a lot of hatred. He (for instance) was the "architect" for the infamous Daikatana "Suck it down" advert. And that's not the biggest mistake he's had to live down.
But this article is decidedly favourable, and his past mistakes make for something like a coming of age story. He's definitely broken what should have been, and probably was, a negative feedback loop.
I don't know how comparable this is to Phil Fish's arc. But I think it shows that a negative feedback loop (in terms of press and public image) isn't a permanent thing, and that the press and the public will move on if given a reason.
Comments
The fact that you can construct this argument from a rational and thoughtful perspective, even without actually knowing the person involved, means that people who hold otherwise are actively choosing to, at best, perpetuate negativity and justify hate crimes at worst. If anyone is going to defend their own anger, it had better damn well be constructive anger that's worth perpetuating.
So if you've said stupid crap about Phil or Anita to me and I've been snippy or cut you off in person, that's why. Be glad I was having a bad enough day not to engage properly.
Boxxy, Flappy, Sarkeesian, some of the other concept-embodiers that I can remember. Some learn to harness that, some can't stand to be near that.
I'm not sure I understand this bizarre fascination society has with 'celebrities'. Personally I can't stand it. When people say things like: "Did you see [name of famous person]!? They're so stupid/awful/amazing/synonym-for-significant-above-mortals!", I can't help but feel, "Who are you to judge? Your life is just as screwed up. The only difference is camera angle and honestly, probably effort."
Why don't people work on themselves instead of damning themselves to eternally stare dumbfounded up at the those they've elevated above themselves?
/mini-rant, sorry
You know, when I see a flashlight shone on the gaming masses out there, I can't help worrying a bit; "Are these the people I'm creating for? Why would I want to have anything to do with such beings? Should I have rather sought employment in the military - maybe they'd one day let me near 'the button'?"
I'm kinda hoping that's a loud, immature minority and that there are a greater number of reasonable people. Say it's so...?
I've met Phil Fish, though very very briefly. I found him to be a sincere, though somewhat humourless guy. Though this definitely an brief impression rather than an insight from spending a lot of time with him.
This video makes the claim that we don't know Phil Fish. But we do know that Phil Fish said a lot of incredibly awful things about other people publicly. We definitely do know something about where Phil Fish draws the line in terms of online conduct.
Personally, I judge people who lash out in public fits of road rage to be flawed in character. Personally I abhor the antisocial behaviour that happens in games like DOTA. I also think that trolls and flamers in Youtube comments (and elsewhere) embarrass themselves.
I want to add a disclaimer before I go on:
I really don't want to stimulate more hate towards Phil Fish, and I don't want to be perceived to be sympathetic with the group of people who have directed that hate at him (or directed that hate at the idea of him).
I get that Phil Fish is a person, and the internet is a mob. And condemning them equally has more negative effect on Phil Fish / Polytron than it does on the internet. In fact condemning them equally would never have any discernible effect on the internet.
And I don't think what the indie-gaming community has done towards Phil Fish is justified. I think it's unfair, and kind of ridiculous, that his slightest move was being watched and reported in the harshest light.
But he did behave just like an asshole would didn't he?
So yes, he behaved like an asshole would, some of the time. But asshole wasn't all of him, only a part of him, but the media didn't acknowledge any other part of him other than "asshole + celebrity".
Anyway yeah I don't like people who behave like assholes, but then we are all only human and we can all err. I don't think I need ever to write anyone off for behaving in a certain way in a certain situation.
But gaming is huge, this has got to be the few, right?
This, coupled with human tendency towards a confirmation bias (only noticing information that confirms that he is indeed an asshole) makes this video a great study of human behaviour.
And, personally, I fucking love Nickleback.
I think the important thing that's missing in "evaluations" of Phil's "behavior" is the complete lack of time and context. Saying he behaved unacceptably after already being backed into a corner by relentlessly attacking commenters? Not useful, all it does is fall into the same trap that the video is pointing out in the first place. Phil received hate, tried not to change because of it, couldn't prevent his actions being demonized, gave up trying in protest and got more demonized.
I don't think that judging the demonized by how they behaved AFTER dealing with demonization for ages is a worthwhile thing to do. Especially not when any "facts" are transmitted through the narrative of how much this person is already an asshole anyway...
I also think (like @Dammit suggested) that the information in the video has a ton of great information about human behaviour. But I can't actually sympathize with the statement above is the thing. Not changing in the face of plenty of evidence, and stubbornly taking actions that in the past have caused obvious self harm, isn't a positive thing.
I would say that the media / internet acted predictably when it came to its reaction, and the demonization, of Phil Fish. I would expect the internet to behave precisely the same way (but with a tiny fraction of the magnitude) should any of us behave like he did.
So I'd think that the thing to learn from the saga isn't so much "Phil Fish is an asshole" (though I'd contend that anyone who thinks posting phrases like "suck on my dick and choke on it" is at the very least at that moment acting the role of an asshole), but rather "Phil Fish was appallingly naive in interfacing with the internet".
And if we didn't know it already, which I think most of us here do, it adds further evidence of the necessity to always retain a civil tone, and to always try convert negative conversations into positive ones. Even when our natural tendency is to do otherwise.
But that's not news really. The whole thing was a horrible tragedy, with a lot of people to blame, but, I think, none more so than Phil himself.
(Also just to be clear, I think Anita Sarkeesian is a totally different situation. She has received hate from the internet, but she received that hate by behaving in a way that had a clear benefit for society. That can't be said of the actions Phil Fish took that triggered his internet-hate).
(Also, just to be clear, I'm good friends with several people who are in some circumstances assholes. It doesn't mean I approve of that behaviour when it occurs, or necessarily that they do. And this is fine because they aren't assholes to me, and perfection isn't a prerequisite for my friendship).
At the same time, this whole thing smacks of victim blaming to me... Yes, it would be perfectly valid to argue that Phil wasn't super nice to people when he said "suck on my dick and choke on it" but my point is that that happened after the feedback loop was already in place, busily turning him into an asshole no matter what he did.
The feedback loop (and this is the part of the video I really liked, where the guy started talking about how the internet is different) locked on to old things Phil had said on a public forum. Things that, when he said them, weren't evidence that he was a horrible person. Things that, at the time, made him friends and even helped the people whose games he was critiquing. Things that, when viewed in the light that you gotta find evidence that this guy is an asshole, can be spun to make him look like an asshole. Things that, no matter how much he responds to comments and tries to be "nicer" can't be un-said - they remain there, as fuel for the hate feedback loop, while it's slowly building momentum until it can turn even the nice things you say and do into reasons why you're horrible.
The only thing you can do when that starts to happen is go totally quiet. Go into hiding and delete everything in the hopes that it's not already backed up somewhere. But that's only possible if the loop is known to you - if it's happening somewhere that you can't see it, or it's happening in response to a big piece of media that you're involved in because it's a great way to raise awareness for your game... Well. You're basically fucked.
Because once that loop takes hold and you start being a concept, then even being involved in a seriously interesting discussion with Jon Blow and generally being an interesting source of game design comment and making a good game is magically turned into "Phil Fish is a racist because we're taking 1 thing he said out of context because we hate the guy, hahaha". The whole point of that video was to show that the "reasons" people talk about are all waaaaaaay down the self-justifying chain of well-this-is-all-fucked-now. You probably can't even go back and dig up those original utterings that started the hate loop, or if you did, you wouldn't recognise them as obviously bad because they pale in comparison to the goaded "choke on it" and the overblown "racism". In fact, as @dammit pointed out, even the nice stuff simply won't register anymore because it doesn't confirm the hate narrative...
So no, I don't think it's fair at all to imply that this could have been avoided if Phil had been nice enough. Or that he didn't try to be nicer properly. He wasn't "asking for it", he was communicating with friends and people with shared interests online. He wasn't being given useful or reliable feedback to change obviously unacceptable behavior, he was bullied because being slightly different to standard North American forumites made him an easy target. The reason I think about this so much is because AAA studios have the solution: Don't let devs talk. Passionate, driven devs are the worst people to talk to press because they're not guarded all the time, they can get frustrated with builds or go insane from business stress. PR people stay on pre-planned marketing messages, that's how you stop Dennis Dyack or Derek Smart from sinking your game before it launches.
And truth is I'm kinda terrified of this happening here. Because anything we say here as feedback could easily be spun into something "too harsh" or "not nice enough" for someone, somewhere online. I can guarantee you that anyone here that gives honest, useful, constructive, friendly (!) criticism could have some part of that criticism spun around on them at any time. And that's not a thing I want to see happen.
And before you say it's not likely to happen to us out here, remember how weird stuff got with LazyGamer before DD launched. They actively started twisting stuff we'd said online because they couldn't wait for the game to come out. They were looking forward to a thing we were making, and turned that into reasons to dislike us... I mean, the argument was laughable. Thankfully they weren't a dominant voice in the narrative of the game, so it didn't all turn to crap, but even though I tried to manage that as carefully as possible (like, I never told anyone to choke on anything, ever!) it still made working on DD incredibly shit for a few weeks right before launch (because you're always totally relaxed then, right?)... More studying of this sort of thing seems like a good idea to me, because I don't feel that it's very controllable with "the right behavior".
In particular we had been mentioning the phrase "No emotions, just explosions" a phrase Rock Paper Shotgun had used when describing our game. We thought the statement was a hilarious summary of Broforce, and 80s action films like Commando (1985), and the statement was to us a parody of our own development process.
But the journalist took it to mean: "Free Lives wants more dumb games and more anti-intellectualism and Free Lives want fewer games that have an emotional impact to be produced".
This wasn't really much of a stretch. We had basically said that. We might even have meant it like that. And seeing it through that lens we realized this was not a great thing to say in public. It compressed poorly. And at a time when indie games are finding great new ways to explore evoking emotion in games, and with so much uncharted territory in this design space, our timing for this statement was particularly shitty.
So we sat down. Had a talk about it. And resolved not to express that sentiment in that manner. We had a good think about who we were, and how we wanted to be seen, and we made some changes to our attitude towards ourselves and Broforce. At least I did.
We had caused some damage to ourselves, but we were going to do better in future.
Point is: I really believe that it's possible to perceive when you are coming across to your audience poorly, and I believe it is possible to adjust course.
So far so good... though I would lose some faith if things did spin out of control due to no conceivable fault of ours.
I guess this is where we disagree (and is perhaps the crux of our disagreement). I don't think that getting into a position where "You're basically fucked" is going to happen unless you are naive or careless or both.
Though I totally agree that more studying of this sort of thing is important. I'm not trying to silence anyone. I don't think there is any hard evidence for "being fucked" being inevitable or avoidable. But I have more faith in my ability (or the ability of those I work with) to steer our public image than @Dislekcia does his, and as such believe that others are empowered to do the same.
(That anti-Broforce article had other criticisms in it as well, and I've made other changes in course based on them. I was just singling out one easy-to-relate lesson we learned)
Asking questions until you are sure you understand the person who is talking to you. There may be cultural, social, emotional and mental differences between you and that may make interpretation tricky - even when you're speaking the same language. This is especially important in terms of "game journalism." We all know that money is made on these sites through clicks so the information that's headline news is often just the most entertaining. And that's our fault. We're not questioning this, we're not questioning the algorithm through which we see certain information in our Facebook feeds (research here has shown that news we get through Facebook reinforces our own beliefs, regardless of what those beliefs are, because Facebook reacts to what we react to, thereby creating a nasty closed loop), we're not questioning each other. The more questions, the better.
As a communicator, you also need to ensure that you are doing your best to communicate exactly what you want to say clearly. You are responsible for everything you say (not every interpretation of it) so saying "suck on my dick and choke on it" is going to get a bad reaction because that's what it's intended to do. It's an antagonistic piece of communication. If you meant it as a joke, you're responsible for communicating that clearly, as best as possible. So, as communicators, thinking a whole lot before you communicate (post, sms, email, rant out loud, gossip) is incredibly important.
One of the downsides of instant communication is that we take it for granted. We do it quickly, and we do it badly, and we're super surprised when things turn out a mess. More thinking, more communication (with context and information), and more responsibility from both sides would certainly go a long way.
If you want to change the way communication happens, and what journalism in the indie game development field looks like, then you guys are the ones to do it. You're voting for every article you read, comment on, post or share. You're also downvoting all news that you ignore, don't comment on, post or share. Something worth thinking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae is some very light reading which maybe overlaps with some of what we're talking about here. We do our best to portray ourselves as close to who we really are, within the constraints of the society or culture we're in.
I think as a whole gamers and game developers are usually a more vocal group, not in a negative or positive manner here, just more vocal, more willing to voice opinions on matters or speak up if given the choice. How we choose to portray ourselves or the things we say, reflects on us as a person. Everybody comes under fire at some time in their lives and how they respond to being shot at is indicative of the kind of person they are. When we're anonymous in an online game or behind tinted windows in our cars, mud slinging occurs, but if we're face-to-face with people or using our Twitter as a vehicle for our social communication, then the rules change accordingly.
The way James Blunt replies to some of his tweets is an indication of how some people deal with insults.
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2013/12/31/26-reasons-why-james-blunt-won-at-twitter-in-2013/
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I think this as a result of my experience in the past, my time spent in forums, these sorts of communities (inside and outside of gaming) and some work that I've done on the topic in the past.
I often doublecheck my thinking so as to avoid biases such as these. I should maybe have specified further in this regard as to where they're more vocal. I'm not saying these individuals are verbose or overly vocal in their everyday lives (i.e: in person) but online/in-forum/in-game because of the ease-of-use which these communities typically offer, the tendency to talk increases. In these settings, it's much faster and easier for us to communicate as it's just a few touch types away.
That being said, as a corollary, just because it's easy doesn't mean everybody's doing it.
I remember that article. Your response to it via twitter was pretty damn good, just linking to it saying it had some interesting points. I actually engaged with its author - he didn't know that you weren't from the US yourselves (and thus that your perception of US patriotism and culture was very different to what he was painting it as) and while he seemed to listen to my points, I don't think his perspective changed much.
But the key thing here for me is this:
All the same information that he used to come to his conclusion IS STILL OUT THERE on the internet. Your changing course hasn't removed that quote from RPS. I'm certain that you guys (being as awesome as you are) aren't adding to that image anymore, but it's still possible to cherry pick past information to support that interpretation of the game if that's what someone wants to do.
All it takes is one really big voice to champion that message and not want to actually engage with you to "fix" it at all and that's the start of a potential feedback loop that heads in the same direction as the one Phil got caught in. I mean, what if that negative article had been posted on Polygon or Gamasutra instead? And we know from what @Dammit's been adding to this thread that any course-corrections after that article would be more likely to be dismissed by readers and commenters simply because it differed from the message they wanted to hear.
I feel like you're right in that the best defense against this sort of trap is to be as nice as possible to everyone and not give anyone reasons to want to dislike you. But the whole way that Lazygamer turned negative on DD because one writer liked the game so much they couldn't stand waiting longer (but didn't want to play the beta that they had access to), coupled with the way that there's always just so much negativity online when you try to do nice things for players that are often requested (like launch a Linux version or release DRM-free on GoG) that it feels much riskier engaging with people who have regular "voice amplifiers".
Being nice is always a good idea. Communicating responsibly is always smart. Managing damaging events as they happen is a pretty engaging game to play, but I feel like it's a lot less well balanced than I used to think it was. I'm South African, while that's a good thing most of the time when it comes to publicising QCF's games, I'm well aware that I'm different to the majority of the press and audience for the game. I want that difference to be exciting and interesting, not alienating and rewarding to bash on. Sometimes I feel like that's often not my choice to make.
In our case that article (that was critical of Broforce) didn't align well with many people's experiences of Broforce. If that article had come from a more widely distributed and more trusted source it probably wouldn't have had a much different result.
It kind of came out of the blue (I'd been expecting to be called on the weak satire, but not with such aggression). And I think if that article could have had more traction we then would have seen it coming (in tweets about Broforce, or on the Steam forums, or in Youtube comments, or Let's Plays, or from our peers).
So I think that article about Broforce is different in a lot of ways to the Phil Fish articles (besides us being way less famous). The biggest difference being "game developer is bad at satire and has bad political views" isn't an easily transmitted gossip piece. So the article may have been a poor example for me to bring up in the first place.
But it did worry us at the time that the information that produced those conclusions is still out there. It still worries me, but it's not something I can do anything about. In all honesty I think we are still adding some fuel to that fire, but less overtly now (and we have yet to add any depth to the satire in the game itself, but that's coming).
But besides feeling in control of the way Free Lives communicates, this is other reason why I think the internet is less likely to strike randomly and start a negative feedback loop on Free Lives:
At Free Lives we spend a lot of effort trying to win over people. We try to be friendly pro-actively. It's not just about being nice in our communications, we try conform our business operations to the shape that our audience perceives as "nice". We're patching bugs as fast as we can. We're not charging more than our peers for the product. We're visibly improving the game for those that own it (though I worry it's not fast enough). We're doing our best to keep up with forum posts. We're trying to be funny and approachable. Essentially: We're actively trying to produce advocates and friends amongst our audience.
We're consciously trying to build a brand that is liked (not just make a game). If we're at all successful in this I think this should make it very unlikely for a negative perception of us to take hold and grow.
I think now that we're published by Devolver it's a little harder to avoid being seen as money-driven. But a positive side effect is that Free Lives is now vastly more protected against a negative news cycle from being with Devolver (they have way more marketing smarts).
I don't really know how Polytron ran its marketing. But I'm pretty certain it wasn't always "players first" (in particular there was that incident with not patching the save game bug, which highlighted Microsoft's indie-unfriendliness, but still screwed players).
Like @Dammit mentioned about Knobe's law. People are much more selective about who is hero than who is a villain. Maintaining a positive feedback loop takes a lot of effort. Sometimes it even takes sacrifice.
You're right, you can't control people and you certainly can't absolutely prevent some crazy from writing something crazy about you. All you can do is be above reproach in all your communication so that the non-crazies who come across a crazy will take their firmly held belief that you guys are nice/great/awesome guys (based on zero information except some awesome tweets and a cool game) and completely disregard crazy's information. It's really about creating the belief that you want in people and this is done through constant good and responsible communication.
When crazy does write crazy stuff, then you have the choice to ignore, engage, respond, defend or spin. It all depends on the situation. Generally, a response like @BlackShipsFilltheSky did is the ideal way to deal with this. Engaging or defending is likely to make the situation bigger than it was to begin with and trying to spin a story could make you look like the bad guys trying to manipulate your audience.
You've also got to remember that the internet - and people - have an incredibly short memory. What's important to you may not matter much to the people who buy your game after about a week. Think of how much more they have going on in their lives and what's really at stake for them when some crazy writes something off about your game: pretty much zilch. So, chances of people getting on a crazy's bandwagon when they have enough other experience to say that you're awesome is pretty damn small.
Phil Fish put himself in a situation where it was easy for people to get on that bandwagon.
http://www.pcgamesn.com/if-first-you-dont-succeed-mike-wilson-five-years-devolver-and-lifetime-publishing-struggles
I thought this is relevant here because Mike Wilson has done things in the past that have generated a lot of hatred. He (for instance) was the "architect" for the infamous Daikatana "Suck it down" advert. And that's not the biggest mistake he's had to live down.
But this article is decidedly favourable, and his past mistakes make for something like a coming of age story. He's definitely broken what should have been, and probably was, a negative feedback loop.
I don't know how comparable this is to Phil Fish's arc. But I think it shows that a negative feedback loop (in terms of press and public image) isn't a permanent thing, and that the press and the public will move on if given a reason.