Update: Fez Dev Tells Media Member To Kill Himself

[McMullen]

So he says that he's not leaving because of what this one stupid guy said, but so that he doesn't have to put up with "this abuse" anymore?

I was under the impression that those two things are not that different.

Well, now I know a little bit about this guy, and it is not evidence that he's worth paying attention to.

 

[JudgeGame]

It kind of sickens me that people actually believe that anybody "deserves" to get hundreds of angry, violent messages every day because they said something. I'm willing to forgive the people who for lack of thought decide to vent their anger on someone along with another hundred drones and leave it at that. What I'm not willing to forgive are the frankly crazy people who keep following, listening and viciously reacting to the same guy for months and years. What is wrong with you? If you don't like some guys opinions at least unfollow them on Twitter. There's a block button. Use it! If you really can't help reminding Phil Fish how much you don't like him day after day, I'm sorry, you are a total jerk with no life. Unless Phil Fish is actively making people's life worse by other means than cluttering their Twitter feed with arguments, surely the inteligent and healthy thing to do would be to ignore him.

These people are part of the shame of the game community. They are no better, in fact much worse, than Phil Fish and the fact we pretend their actions are harmless when they've forced someone to leave the industry they work in for the benefit of nobody is a disgusting example of the complacency we have towards the cancerous apathy that is killing this culture.

It's embarrassing that I have to be surrounded by people who have the emotional maturity of school children and watch as they gang up on whoever they can so they can give themselves a pat on the back. The fact that news writers (I'm not saying which) play along with this bullshit is pathetic.

 

[Brussels]

Fish has done things to deserve it--Aside from the low blows Beer took, he had a point that Jon Blow and Phil Fish are extremely prominent members of indie gaming, and as such should be prepared for the media asking them questions about indie development and the treatment indie developers get. If they're going to talk up their own games as the coming of Christ in gaming form, they should be willing to answer questions not about themselves or their games, or they should be prepared to take criticism for how they spurn the media.

If the questions were about something that was fully confirmed, they probably would have with someone who doesn't call them names and insult them. They saw no point in commenting on rumors that weren't about them and that should be fine. The real story would come from people involved, like Microsoft who is developing the console. Maybe they would know more about Xbox One policies than Fish or Blow.

 

[Granfaloon]

I would have to say that everything I have read and seen about Phil Fish indicates to me that he is a complete narcissist. He thinks he is better than everyone else and gets butt hurt at the smallest criticism, even though he is a complete dick himself. I won't say that the world would be better without him because Fez is actually a decent game imo, and the loss of anyone would be a tragedy. but he sure could use some therapy and anger management classes. And yes, this is a classic case of 'I'm gonna take my ball and go home'. I choose not to side with anyone here because though I've never heard of Mr. Beer before, I did watch the video that initiated this drama and he seems to be a verifiable asshole himself. But it seems like Mr. Fish asked for it though.

Edit: I must say I think this article is very biased as well, it's painting Fish as the bad guy when he was provoked. And also, I am sad about the cancellation of Fez 2, though I have a feeling that Fish is gonna do a 180 within a week.

 

[RaikuFA]

Wow, people really dislike this Phil guy.

I mean, they're defending a critic.

Critics are notorious for making their living off ruining others, and for being overly negative or just all out biased if paid off... For a critic (without provocation or reason) to call this guy a "Blowfish" obviously making fun of him and his co-developer, I can see the anger as justified. I also agree with someone else who posted that this seems like a fairly normal human response. The "kill yourself" thing, was definitely typed in anger and of course wasn't meant. It's kind of another way to say "f you" on the internet.

People in this thread are already calling him all kinds of things like douchebag etc.... and they know nothing about him except this 1 situation.

I can see how easy it must have been for mobs in the past to lynch and hate.

It's really quite depressing, and it shows just how effective a false witness could be. You can have an entire room of people hate someone they know nothing about.... by attesting to a single situation that may or may not have ever actually happened.

Bit depressing...

Forgiveness, patience, understanding, are important values we need to consider more often.

This is far from an isolated incident though, if it were then it'd be completely different. This time he just blew up a little bit more than he has before and made it an even bigger spectacle by ending with "I QUIT."

His argument against Beer and anybody who spoke against him on twitter also boiled down to, "How dare you attack my character and the value of my work! That is rude and you should apologize. In fact it should be televised at PAX. Now sit there and shut up while I attack your character and the value of the work of the entirety of journalism." I believe his exact words were that they "Do nothing but masturbate vomit." So I'm not surprised most journalists will take the side of Beer.

Before that someone criticized him being awarded when his game wasn't even out yet, he had replied, "I just won the IGF. Suck my dick. Choke on it."

The attack was over the twitter user calling out his hypocrisy in insulting a whole region of games when he can't release one game.

Also, I believe Fish was telling other indie devs to not participate in the IGF cause they were a scam or some shit, then he enters and wins(I dunno if it was the IGF or not).

 

[Bat Vader]

It kind of sickens me that people actually believe that anybody "deserves" to get hundreds of angry, violent messages every day because they said something. I'm willing to forgive the people who for lack of thought decide to vent their anger on someone along with another hundred drones and leave it at that. What I'm not willing to forgive are the frankly crazy people who keep following, listening and viciously reacting to the same guy for months and years. What is wrong with you? If you don't like some guys opinions at least unfollow them on Twitter. There's a block button. Use it! If you really can't help reminding Phil Fish how much you don't like him day after day, I'm sorry, you are a total jerk with no life. Unless Phil Fish is actively making people's life worse by other means than cluttering their Twitter feed with arguments, surely the inteligent and healthy thing to do would be to ignore him.

These people are part of the shame of the game community. They are no better, in fact much worse, than Phil Fish and the fact we pretend their actions are harmless when they've forced someone to leave the industry they work in for the benefit of nobody is a disgusting example of the complacency we have towards the cancerous apathy that is killing this culture.

It's embarrassing that I have to be surrounded by people who have the emotional maturity of school children and watch as they gang up on whoever they can so they can give themselves a pat on the back. The fact that news writers (I'm not saying which) play along with this bullshit is pathetic.

The same could be said for Phil Fish too though. If the abuse from the people on Twitter was that bad he could have easily just stopped using Twitter, blocked said people that criticized him, protected his account, or had a friend or professional PR person handle it. Plus, from other examples people have posted Phil wasn't all that innocent and provoked people like when he called the people who bought FEZ for $9.00 ingrates. Insulting the people who bought his game seems like a surefire way to kill sales and make people dislike him.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

This guy was a bag of dicks even around the time he released the first game, to the point where the sentiment of "You know what, I don't care how good or not good your game is, I'm not buying it because you're a huge asshole" was pretty common.

He's just reminding us that he still is. You don't get the kind of reaction he has from people without earning it.

 

[Zeckt]

Just imagine, if everyone who Fish told off responded the same way HE did in return to him he would be in a mental institution. He's a selfish, mean dickface of a human being that has no care about other peoples feelings who's perfectly willing to insult anybody not him but if you call HIM out? you get an immature break down.

Wherever fish goes outside of the gaming industry, I would HATE to be working with or for him. He would be the kind of boss that literally screams at his workers yet if you even so much as get your feelings hurt or argue back at him he would throw a tantrum and try to fire you no matter how good you are at your job only because you got on his nerves.

Whoever is in this post defending him, face it. He's a bad person.

 

[NortherWolf]

Wow, people really dislike this Phil guy.

I mean, they're defending a critic.

Critics are notorious for making their living off ruining others, and for being overly negative or just all out biased if paid off... For a critic (without provocation or reason) to call this guy a "Blowfish" obviously making fun of him and his co-developer, I can see the anger as justified. I also agree with someone else who posted that this seems like a fairly normal human response. The "kill yourself" thing, was definitely typed in anger and of course wasn't meant. It's kind of another way to say "f you" on the internet.

Ah, the joys of not getting it. Critics don't "ruin others", they criticize. You're sounding like Rob Schneider right now.
I love how you go "You guys call this guy names but don't know him. But I totally know him and know he's saintly and didn't mean the 'go kill yourself'" even with the guy's history of blowing a fuse and possible mental illness...

The guy acted like a whiny brat, told someone to kill themselves and then wants everyone to kiss his ass? Yeah, fuck him.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

If Phil Fish wants to be rude and insult everyone on Twitter that is his choice. He really has no right to get angry when people take offense to how he acts and criticize him for acting the way he does. I was actually thinking of getting FEZ but now that I know how Phil Fish acts I have decided not to buy it. I refuse to support someone that acts like a child and can't maintain even a shred of professionalism.

Y'know, when people post pictures of the things Phil Fish said, have you noticed that in all of them it's only basically soundbites that are shown or quotes taken out of context? They never show the WHOLE conversation from start to finish, and it demonstrates a level of bias only ever seen on FOX News with anything democrat related.

Also, "professionalism"? That's an arbitrary term from a bygone age. We should move past the old standards of "professionalism" as they represent older ideals that ultimately hold back progress in any medium. I agree with what the creator of Linux said we should do about "professionalism", and maintaining such an act is just presenting a false image of yourself to others, and it is taxing on a human being to maintain it. It's something that comes from the bygone age of before the internet, we should all be allowed to act as ourselves as long as we don't tread on other people's rights to act like themselves without this facade they call "professionalism".

 

[Cybylt]

The attack was over the twitter user calling out his hypocrisy in insulting a whole region of games when he can't release one game.

Also, I believe Fish was telling other indie devs to not participate in the IGF cause they were a scam or some shit, then he enters and wins(I dunno if it was the IGF or not).

From my understanding, not only was he trying to talk others out of showing up in the first place, he also tried to vote people out of it by claiming they had publishing deals with major corporations... while signing a publishing deal with a major corporation. And that's why Judas in the Team Meat games wears a fez.

 

[Bat Vader]

If Phil Fish wants to be rude and insult everyone on Twitter that is his choice. He really has no right to get angry when people take offense to how he acts and criticize him for acting the way he does. I was actually thinking of getting FEZ but now that I know how Phil Fish acts I have decided not to buy it. I refuse to support someone that acts like a child and can't maintain even a shred of professionalism.

Y'know, when people post pictures of the things Phil Fish said, have you noticed that in all of them it's only basically soundbites that are shown or quotes taken out of context? They never show the WHOLE conversation from start to finish, and it demonstrates a level of bias only ever seen on FOX News with anything democrat related.

Also, "professionalism"? That's an arbitrary term from a bygone age. We should move past the old standards of "professionalism" as they represent older ideals that ultimately hold back progress in any medium. I agree with what the creator of Linux said we should do about "professionalism", and maintaining such an act is just presenting a false image of yourself to others, and it is taxing on a human being to maintain it. It's something that comes from the bygone age of before the internet, we should all be allowed to act as ourselves as long as we don't tread on other people's rights to act like themselves without this facade they call "professionalism".

If people don't want to act professional that is their choice to do so. If an employee at MacDonald's wants to insult a customer for no reason at all that is their choice to do so. I don't believe the employee has the right to be angry or surprised when they are reprimanded and most likely fired by management for how they acted. People can act how they want but they should at least think of the consequences first. If Phil Fish wants to be rude and insult people for buying his game for $9.00 that is his right and choice to make. It is my right and choice to not support him for the way he acts.

 

[DanDeFool]

The moral of this story is that you can never control what people say and do to you. You can only control yourself, and how you respond to them.

But I guess Fish must have played all renegade through Mass Effect 1. Oh well.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I like how in his response he said he wasn't going anywhere and then he promptly leaves, classic.

 

[Denizen]

All those constant attacks are deserved and the reality is that they aren't even attacks, or at least weren't. He did this to himself; plain and simple. He saw constructive criticism as attacks and replied exactly with what he thought they were, so in turn he attracted those types of comments he's now fixating and complaining about.

Despite all that said, there is another side to this.

I put most of the blame on indie gaming fanatics who follow the, "All indie is good! It's all indie or nothing!" mantra. I'm not saying that loving indie games makes you an indie game fanatic, there's a clear line. There's many great indie games out there but going by absolutes and then praising people with sensitive egos like this just sets them up for self-destruction. These fanatics were looking for a new indie king to worship, saw fez and a potential new idol, bloated this guy's ego to the point where it can't be contained, and here we are.

I'm not even saying that they're wholly responsible for his actions because it's obvious he was already prone to lashing out; but, it pushed him to the point where he started making those first awful comments shortly after he was hailed as a great indie developer. They gave him a license to be infallible (in his mind) and he still thinks this way. There's just no good side to this at all but it's way past the point where he needs to learn to accept reality, responsibility for what he's done and said, and so he can finally see what he's doing.

Spoiler

also fez wasn't even that good

 

[JudgeGame]

It kind of sickens me that people actually believe that anybody "deserves" to get hundreds of angry, violent messages every day because they said something. I'm willing to forgive the people who for lack of thought decide to vent their anger on someone along with another hundred drones and leave it at that. What I'm not willing to forgive are the frankly crazy people who keep following, listening and viciously reacting to the same guy for months and years. What is wrong with you? If you don't like some guys opinions at least unfollow them on Twitter. There's a block button. Use it! If you really can't help reminding Phil Fish how much you don't like him day after day, I'm sorry, you are a total jerk with no life. Unless Phil Fish is actively making people's life worse by other means than cluttering their Twitter feed with arguments, surely the inteligent and healthy thing to do would be to ignore him.

These people are part of the shame of the game community. They are no better, in fact much worse, than Phil Fish and the fact we pretend their actions are harmless when they've forced someone to leave the industry they work in for the benefit of nobody is a disgusting example of the complacency we have towards the cancerous apathy that is killing this culture.

It's embarrassing that I have to be surrounded by people who have the emotional maturity of school children and watch as they gang up on whoever they can so they can give themselves a pat on the back. The fact that news writers (I'm not saying which) play along with this bullshit is pathetic.

The same could be said for Phil Fish too though. If the abuse from the people on Twitter was that bad he could have easily just stopped using Twitter, blocked said people that criticized him, protected his account, or had a friend or professional PR person handle it. Plus, from other examples people have posted Phil wasn't all that innocent and provoked people like when he called the people who bought FEZ for $9.00 ingrates. Insulting the people who bought his game seems like a surefire way to kill sales and make people dislike him.

That is such a ridiculous and backwards solution. The solution is no different than Phil's current solution of leaving the games industry altogether, the difference is merely cosmetic. If I don't want to be catcalled is the solution to not walk in the street?

I don't know how much of my post you even bothered reading. My problem isn't that Phil Fish isn't bad. My problem is that the thousands of people who attack him constantly are just as bad if not more considering the real harm they are causing by acting like a braindead lynchmob. I don't care how horrible Phil Fish was to you, when you join together with another thousand people just to make his life miserable, where I'm from that's called bullying and it's what you expect of dumb children.

 

[uchytjes]

Is it really that hard to practice some basic self control and human decency? Honest question here.

For some, the answer is "why should I worry about other people's opinions of myself? They don't make me, I make me." While others actually care about how other people feel about them.

Personally, I fall into the second camp. It probably stems from my realization a while back that, simply put, the human race is just a bunch of copy-cats with very little true innovation made. Hell, even those that say they are unique and different are copying those that say the same.

 

[Bat Vader]

It kind of sickens me that people actually believe that anybody "deserves" to get hundreds of angry, violent messages every day because they said something. I'm willing to forgive the people who for lack of thought decide to vent their anger on someone along with another hundred drones and leave it at that. What I'm not willing to forgive are the frankly crazy people who keep following, listening and viciously reacting to the same guy for months and years. What is wrong with you? If you don't like some guys opinions at least unfollow them on Twitter. There's a block button. Use it! If you really can't help reminding Phil Fish how much you don't like him day after day, I'm sorry, you are a total jerk with no life. Unless Phil Fish is actively making people's life worse by other means than cluttering their Twitter feed with arguments, surely the inteligent and healthy thing to do would be to ignore him.

These people are part of the shame of the game community. They are no better, in fact much worse, than Phil Fish and the fact we pretend their actions are harmless when they've forced someone to leave the industry they work in for the benefit of nobody is a disgusting example of the complacency we have towards the cancerous apathy that is killing this culture.

It's embarrassing that I have to be surrounded by people who have the emotional maturity of school children and watch as they gang up on whoever they can so they can give themselves a pat on the back. The fact that news writers (I'm not saying which) play along with this bullshit is pathetic.

The same could be said for Phil Fish too though. If the abuse from the people on Twitter was that bad he could have easily just stopped using Twitter, blocked said people that criticized him, protected his account, or had a friend or professional PR person handle it. Plus, from other examples people have posted Phil wasn't all that innocent and provoked people like when he called the people who bought FEZ for $9.00 ingrates. Insulting the people who bought his game seems like a surefire way to kill sales and make people dislike him.

That is such a ridiculous and backwards solution. The solution is no different than Phil's current solution of leaving the games industry altogether, the difference is merely cosmetic. If I don't want to be catcalled is the solution to not walk in the street?

I don't know how much of my post you even bothered reading. My problem isn't that Phil Fish isn't bad. My problem is that the thousands of people who attack him constantly are just as bad if not more considering the real harm they are causing by acting like a braindead lynchmob. I don't care how horrible Phil Fish was to you, when you join together with another thousand people just to make his life miserable, where I'm from that's called bullying and it's what you expect of dumb children.

I read your entire post. I have read all of the posts on this article actually. I have never insulted on twitter or spoken to Phil Fish. In fact,until I read this news article I never even knew who Phil Fish was. Just because other people and I may share the same opinion on the man doesn't mean I am joined with them. Yeah, abuse sucks and he had every right to get out of gaming because of it.

I just believe that he could have done things differently and still continued to make games.

 

[JudgeGame]

It kind of sickens me that people actually believe that anybody "deserves" to get hundreds of angry, violent messages every day because they said something. I'm willing to forgive the people who for lack of thought decide to vent their anger on someone along with another hundred drones and leave it at that. What I'm not willing to forgive are the frankly crazy people who keep following, listening and viciously reacting to the same guy for months and years. What is wrong with you? If you don't like some guys opinions at least unfollow them on Twitter. There's a block button. Use it! If you really can't help reminding Phil Fish how much you don't like him day after day, I'm sorry, you are a total jerk with no life. Unless Phil Fish is actively making people's life worse by other means than cluttering their Twitter feed with arguments, surely the inteligent and healthy thing to do would be to ignore him.

These people are part of the shame of the game community. They are no better, in fact much worse, than Phil Fish and the fact we pretend their actions are harmless when they've forced someone to leave the industry they work in for the benefit of nobody is a disgusting example of the complacency we have towards the cancerous apathy that is killing this culture.

It's embarrassing that I have to be surrounded by people who have the emotional maturity of school children and watch as they gang up on whoever they can so they can give themselves a pat on the back. The fact that news writers (I'm not saying which) play along with this bullshit is pathetic.

The same could be said for Phil Fish too though. If the abuse from the people on Twitter was that bad he could have easily just stopped using Twitter, blocked said people that criticized him, protected his account, or had a friend or professional PR person handle it. Plus, from other examples people have posted Phil wasn't all that innocent and provoked people like when he called the people who bought FEZ for $9.00 ingrates. Insulting the people who bought his game seems like a surefire way to kill sales and make people dislike him.

That is such a ridiculous and backwards solution. The solution is no different than Phil's current solution of leaving the games industry altogether, the difference is merely cosmetic. If I don't want to be catcalled is the solution to not walk in the street?

I don't know how much of my post you even bothered reading. My problem isn't that Phil Fish isn't bad. My problem is that the thousands of people who attack him constantly are just as bad if not more considering the real harm they are causing by acting like a braindead lynchmob. I don't care how horrible Phil Fish was to you, when you join together with another thousand people just to make his life miserable, where I'm from that's called bullying and it's what you expect of dumb children.

I read your entire post. I have read all of the posts on this article actually. I have never insulted on twitter or spoken to Phil Fish. In fact,until I read this news article I never even knew who Phil Fish was. Just because other people and I may share the same opinion on the man doesn't mean I am joined with them. Yeah, abuse sucks and he had every right to get out of gaming because of it.

I just believe that he could have done things differently and still continued to make games.

I wasn't implying that You were responsible for abuse. Just for the record. I was just using that figure of speech. I'm don't really want to be making any judgements on Phil Fish's actions I just want to point out that I think people normalizing the kind of abuse Phil Fish has been recieving for years now is fucked up.

 

[WarpZone]

Man. I would not last five minutes on Twitter.

Some people just can't handle their own P.R. Phil Fish is clearly one of these people. Sad thing is, I think I sort of get where that mentality comes from.

Start with a guy who got used to the internet back when almost nobody was on it, and everyone was more or less anonymous unless they picked a fight with a sysop. Or any random swearing 12-year-old on Xbox Live. Any online community that ISN'T constantly policed to be made nice and safe and pretty. When you're forced to operate in that type of environment, you do two things: You start ignoring the haters, and you start lashing out at the haters. It's human nature. That's WHY the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem is so prevalent in the first place. I'm not saying you can't not be a dick on Xbox Live, but some of us have to work a lot harder than others to resist being sucked into a shouting match with strangers.

Next, allow him to think that anyone more popular than him in the new social-media-based internet is some kinda social parasite, manipulating the stupidity of the masses to camwhore their way to success despite lacking any talent, skills, or ideas worth sharing. (This may seem like an extremely myopic viewpoint, because it is, but admit it, we all felt that way for a split second when we heard who Rebecca Black or Justin Beiber was.)

You now have a person for whom all criticism is invalid and intended to be hurtful, and for whom the ingrained response to haters is to hate them right back twice as hard. Instant flaming troll. Unlimited escalation. This works well enough when you're just a nobody surrounded by other nobodies who are all dicks anyway. But when you're a celebrity on a drama factory like Twitter or Facebook, you have infinitely more to lose than your haters. Phil Fish probably understood this intellectually, but he lost his head in the heat of the moment, and now he feels like he's trapped by one bad move.

On a bad day, this could happen to anyone. But some people are more prone to it than others.