Humans

Other people are human. This is a commonly recognized truth, but it is one frequently forgotten. Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that everyone you met has a soul? This is harder to see online. There is an inherent distance. Not just of miles, but of emotions. When someone is right in front of you and you look right into their eyes as you chew into them, the pain you've given them is harder to shake. But when they are a talking head or simply a username, seemingly a million miles away, it is far easier to justify hatred. Both Phil Fish and Marcus Beer fell into this trap last weekend.

For those unfamiliar, I'm just going to link the Kotaku article. Just because it's well written and balanced and it almost certainly is better than any summary I could provide.
http://kotaku.com/twitter-blowup-leads-to-sudden-cancellation-of-fez-ii-934548588

Caught up? Excellent.
People seem to think that Phil Fish exists in a bubble of assholery. Like he's the shifty looking man or woman at the bus stop shouting profanities at children just for the sheer joy of it. However, my understanding of the controversies that Phil Fish has been involved in has been quite different. Either he expresses a controversial opinion, like "Japanese games suck", or he acts rashly in response to abuse, or at least insensitive comments. The famous twitter line, "I just won the grand prize at IGF tonight. suck my dick. choke on it." was in response to someone crushing and devaluing his work on a game that wasn't even out at the time. That's rude and disgusting. While Fish's response was certainly in poor taste, it was also an act taken after provocation. It's a two way street. While abuse or hatred doesn't give Fish a excuse to act that way, it does give him a reason. With Marcus Beer's comments, while admittedly being an complaint about a relatively minor aspect of Fish's PR, still felt like a personal attack, with Marcus calling Fish an "asshole" and a "tosspot". I have no idea how familiar Fish was with Marcus's previous work, but in that moment the insult was all he saw. So, Fish acted rashly, without class or tact, but that is something we are all prone to do. If I've learned anything from my time spent on the interwebs, it's that giving people the benefit of the doubt is worth it. Particularly if we haven't met them, and if they haven't killed people or done something else truly terrible.

This, of course, applies to Beer as well. I know next to nothing about Beer and I've never met him in person. His opinions have frequently irritated me, but he's been an amusing and engaging presence in the industry. If Beer were to take Fish's offensive suggestion (and possible Futurama reference) and kill himself, we would lose something, and so would Fish.
Let me quote John Donne's "MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" to illustrate my point.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

Other human beings are worth giving a damn about. Whether they are far away or close to you. That a simple reduction of people to "asshole", or "tosspot" or "crazy" is a reduction of yourself. While Fish's exit from the industry is certainly not as drastic a loss as death, it is still a loss. The dialog and creation of games has already suffered because of Fish's absence. All people are human. 

All people are a part of us. It's time we started acting like it.