Indie game maker, head of Polytron and creator of the charming platformer Fez Phil Fish is known around the Internets as kind of a hot head, and there’s no better way to get juicy quotes out of these kinds of folks than poking them with a proverbial stick.
Unfortunately for gamers, this latest attempt at provoking Phil Fish backfired, leading to the abrupt cancellation of Fez 2. Marcus Beer, also known as “Annoyed Gamer”, during a section of Game Trailer’s Invisible Walls went on a rant about Phil Fish and fellow indie game developer Johnathan Blow, calling them several rude things and basically trashing their reputation as independent developers. This resulted in Beer and Fish having a nasty back and forth on Twitter with the end result of Fish announcing the sudden cancellation of Fez 2 and his departure from the games industry.
This claim was backed up by both Polytron’s Twitter account and homepage, which bared the following message:
FEZ II is cancelled.
i am done.
i take the money and i run.
this is as much as i can stomach.
this is isn’t the result of any one thing, but the end of a long, bloody campaign.you win.
Phil Fish often made the headlines on gaming sites because of his famous attitude, but I guess this time was just one too many for him. I doubt we’ll see Fez 2, which is unfortunate for gamers.
So, which side do you fall on here? Did Fish overreact? Did Beer go too far?
Source – Polytron
Fish is a jerk.
However…he did not deserve the blatant harassment that Beer inflicted on him. I have no use for “personalities” like “Annoyed Gamer”, who is nothing more than a radio shock jock looking to stir up attention. He went well over the line and it’s everyone’s loss that Fish couldn’t deal with it.
As for dealing with it, some people don’t have the thick skin that others do. Online harassment has gotten out of hand and a change needs to be made. It shouldn’t be tolerated anymore.
After seeing what he went through in Indie Game: The Movie, I find myself oddly emotionally invested in Phil and his success. The thing about him is that he is obviously a very emotional guy, and very opinionated to boot. And the unfortunate thing is, game journalists know this. They love to go and push his buttons or ask him about an issue they know he has a strong opinion about because they know he’s going to give them a headlining quote. And since these headlining quotes of Phil having his buttons pushed is all the average gamer sees, a large amount of people have grown to dislike him. So between the combination of media prodding and near constant “fan” and gamer backlash (of which he was receiving far before Fez even came out), Phil got fed up, and Beer’s remarks were the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I see so many people say “well if you’re going to be a star in the game’s industry, you’ve got to have thicker skin”. Really? All designers should have to wake up to Twitter hate messages and articles written on gaming sites that have your words taken out of context, further ruining your public image? What the saddest thing to me was the comments on the official Polytron post that announced the cancellation on their web site. Keep in mind that people who view a gaming company’s personal site, rather than receiving news through a third party news site, are generally the biggest fans of that company and/or their games. And you look at these comments, and they all say things like “You are an embarrassment”, “Good news. Stop making games please.”, and “About time, you useless hack.” How can anyone want to be in an industry where comments like those take up 99% of that entire post? People used to leave these kind of comments on the Polytron page during Fez’s development, as well. Why? Just because Phil Fish, who was working with one other guy, hadn’t finished the game yet.
I know I’m ranting here, but so many people on the internet refuse to look at things from Fish’s perspective. If you were him, do you think you would want to keep producing a game in an attempt to please these ungrateful bastards? All the while being someone the media harasses in order to get an easy headline? Phil Fish is a great game designer, it would be an absolute shame if we lost him because of this pathetic, self entitled, vile, gaming “community”.
/rant
I understand absolutely zero of the hate for Jonathan Blow. He seems like a really cool guy. Fish is kind of a different animal, on the other hand. I like it when developers can be fiery or kind of a dick, but Fish just seems straight up immature. He’ll come back, though, just watch.
I think they were both wrong.
Beer quotes: “you looked like a total tosspot”
“you fucking hipsters.”
“Don’t get fucking snicky about it.”
“Whiny? He’s a fucking asshole most of the time.”
^this is not cool.
Fish quotes: “compare your life to mine and then kill yourself.”
^also not cool
To Beer, criticize the actions not the person. seriously you can rant the shit out of bad decisions and say whatever you want but as soon as you turn it in to a personal attack on another, and you start judging them rather than there actions, its bulling. there is a reason why we call it CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. tell him that you think his actions were stupid and use all the colorful language you want but don’t start calling someone names, that guarantees that they are not going to consider everything you said before.
You also doesn’t know him well enough to be throwing such personal insults(critiques?). For all we know he could be on the spectrum, maybe he is mentally incapable of dealing with your type of “journalism” and you are just rubbing salt into a wound he will have to live with his entire life.
Finally Take your own advice when you say “its a two way street.” You shun us we shun you. That is true for you too, if you are a dick to the industry, then the industry will be a dick to you. its not just true for game developers but journalists too.
To Fish, what you said was inexcusable regardless of what other people said. it is never ok to tell someone to “kill yourself”…ever. Its a shame that we wont be seeing a sequel to Fez and I do wish you had bowed out more gracefully, things got a lot worse because of your reaction. take this lesson to heart and move on.
Just my thoughts.
@trogador That’s my bet. We’ll see Fez 2 before too long.
@Gadfly Jim “Compare your life to mine and then kill yourself” is apparently a Futurama quote. Doesn’t really excuse telling someone to kill themselves, though.