Fez 2 Canceled Because of Twitter

[JakeM]

Apparently Phil Fish has canceled Fez 2 because some guy criticized him. Is this the dumbest reason to cancel a game?

[Alpha2099]

I hadn't heard of this story before, and I'm more than a little skeptical about it. There's probably another reason for its cancellation, but rather than admitting that, he went with a Twitter excuse.

[Greg2600]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422377,00.asp

Sounds like Mr. Fish took his ball and went home, sobbing all the way.

[amazin]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422377,00.asp

Sounds like Mr. Fish took his ball and went home, sobbing all the way.

You just have to watch Indie Game the Movie, and then you start understanding Mr. Fish's way of live. He's a loser, a problematic person. Compared to the guys at Team Meat (of Super Meat Boy fame), he's a complete douchebag.

Just watch the documentary, it's really plain to see.

[FFStudios]

Picking on Phil Fish is like picking on the kid who cries after being hit in dodgeball. His ego is up there with the best of them, but he just can't seem to keep his ducks in a row long enough to avoid stuff like this. I'm glad FEZ II is canceled because I'm hoping Renaud can ditch this fool and continue being an awesome game artist.

[Graham Mitchell]

Wow, what a thin-skinned douche. This guy wouldn't last a week in the neo geo forums.

[BetaWolf47]

Shame, because Fez was a great game.

[Tupin]

And nothing of value was lost.

Fez took five years to come out, and had the most pretentious and childish developer in recent memory behind it. I know people say that the media hates on Phil Fish a lot, but he deserves every single bit of criticism he gets and cannot be excused of anything that he pulls. Glad that we don't have to suffer with either his games or his ego any more.

[Jorpho]

To be fair, great swaths of the Internet have been dumping on him incessantly. I would be getting pretty sick of it too.

"So he should just stop talking and stick to making games!" is the obvious answer. But it seems to me that if one is passionate about something, one is not likely to stop talking about it so easily.

What I don't understand is what exactly he is going to do now. Take up consulting? Set to work designing middleware SQL backends for e-businesses? It seems unlikely.

[Tupin]

To be fair, great swaths of the Internet have been dumping on him incessantly. I would be getting pretty sick of it too.

"So he should just stop talking and stick to making games!" is the obvious answer. But it seems to me that if one is passionate about something, one is not likely to stop talking about it so easily.

What I don't understand is what exactly he is going to do now. Take up consulting? Set to work designing middleware SQL backends for e-businesses? It seems unlikely.

You can have a big mouth if you make good games and deliver. People are going to hate you, sure, but it won't really matter when your games are still good. The creator of Bayonetta constantly antagonizes people on Twitter who ask him questions he deems stupid, but no one cares because he made Bayonetta.

Phil Fish and Fez is more like John Romero and Daikatana. In fact, I wager that if Twitter were around when Daikatana was a big thing, Romero would have acted similar to Fish. But hey, at least Romero made Wolfenstein and Doom. It's like the guy who made the Epic Mickey games complaining about the criticism. Maybe if you had made a GOOD game, people wouldn't have complained? Fez would have blown minds had it come out in 2007. Too little, too late.

I really, really, really do not like developers complaining on Twitter. You're working in an industry that is struggling to be taken professionally, and telling people to "suck my dick and choke on it" isn't going to make you the next Gabe Newell. Be the bigger man.

[Greg2600]

To be fair, great swaths of the Internet have been dumping on him incessantly. I would be getting pretty sick of it too.

"So he should just stop talking and stick to making games!" is the obvious answer. But it seems to me that if one is passionate about something, one is not likely to stop talking about it so easily.

What I don't understand is what exactly he is going to do now. Take up consulting? Set to work designing middleware SQL backends for e-businesses? It seems unlikely.

Handling the fame is part of the game! Seriously, if he's that easily angered he shouldn't be on social media. Only use it as a PR tool, and never reply to any of the asshats who try to bash you. It's not complicated.

[Sulz]

I know there's a bit of generalization in saying this, but this is part of what I don't like about the indie game scene. Too much ego and overall snobbery, in addition to hypersensitivity to criticism. It's not everyone that's doing it, but you see it come to the forefront a lot more often in this area of gaming because the teams are small and usually the vision of one or two guys (not that that's a bad thing in itself, of course). The bottom line is that it's really unprofessional. Show some restraint for once.

Fez is one of those games that I honestly didn't want to play because of Fish's disrespectful attitude, which is a shame. Now there's this, and all it really does is hurt the fans. Kinda hard for me to imagine forking over money to this guy for his game when this is how he acts.

[Tupin]

I know there's a bit of generalization in saying this, but this is part of what I don't like about the indie game scene. Too much ego and overall snobbery, in addition to hypersensitivity to criticism. It's not everyone that's doing it, but you see it come to the forefront a lot more often in this area of gaming because the teams are small and usually the vision of one or two guys (not that that's a bad thing in itself, of course). The bottom line is that it's really unprofessional. Show some restraint for once.

Fez is one of those games that I honestly didn't want to play because of Fish's disrespectful attitude, which is a shame. Now there's this, and all it really does is hurt the fans. Kinda hard for me to imagine forking over money to this guy for his game when this is how he acts.
It's part of the reason why I laugh at the "indie revolution" or similar terms. Has the tendency to be a movement with more ego and desire for art than making a fun game. There has to be a middle ground between EA Origin type evil villain developers and snobs like Fish. This black/white view is just making all games coming out from anyone look the same.

The big guys put out the same brown FPS year in year out, and the little guys with put out the same "retro inspired" platformer/Zelda clone again and again. It's even more hilarious when they make fun of the big guys for lack of new ideas.

[Berserker]

It's part of the reason why I laugh at the "indie revolution" or similar terms. Has the tendency to be a movement with more ego and desire for art than making a fun game. There has to be a middle ground between EA Origin type evil villain developers and snobs like Fish. This black/white view is just making all games coming out from anyone look the same.

The big guys put out the same brown FPS year in year out, and the little guys with put out the same "retro inspired" platformer/Zelda clone again and again. It's even more hilarious when they make fun of the big guys for lack of new ideas.

You must not be looking very hard.

[Aussie2B]

The guy's a manchild, and I'm sure the game isn't truly cancelled. He's just fishing (to make a bad pun) for pity and praise from his diehard fanboys. Then when people beg him to make Fez 2, he'll feel all big and mighty again. And it may just be a publicity stunt, if he's of the mind that any publicity is good publicity.

[The Adventurer]

Good to know douchebag based jock culture is still alive and well in the video game industry. Lets insult and belittle legitimate artists some more.

[Tupin]

Good to know douchebag based jock culture is still alive and well in the video game industry. Lets insult and belittle legitimate artists some more.

Hey, if Fish made the game he promised, no one would be complaining. But he could never make that, he hyped it and himself up too much.

And besides, there's many, many, MANY people who want to break into the industry. Do we really need a pretentious and obnoxious jerk with such flagrant disregard for his roots such as this?

http://puu.sh/1XiR4

And therefore, I reiterate: nothing of value is lost.

[Aussie2B]

Good to know douchebag based jock culture is still alive and well in the video game industry. Lets insult and belittle legitimate artists some more.

Like how he insults and belittles others?

I wouldn't even know this guy's name if he didn't act like such a jerk online. He's made that reputation himself with his own choices. If he wanted to improve his reputation, he'd act like a professional, mature adult and not continuously get into flame wars and spout childish nonsense. That's kind of Business 101 when representing a company/product. Don't alienate your customers.

And being an artist isn't a free pass to be a jerk, nor does it mean that it's impossible to be a jerk. Artists are just like anybody else. Some are good people, some aren't.

[Graham Mitchell]

http://puu.sh/1XiR4



What a shitbag. I'm sure if I showed this Metro Last Light on my PC with 2 GeForce Titans and an i7 CPU running at 60FPS with max settings he'd say it "sucks" and the 360 is better.

And I agree with the sentiment that Fez didn't warrant all the bad attitude shit talking he did, and being an "artist" doesn't excuse bad behavior.

[eskobar]

Guys, I have read some of your opinions and if he took too seriously the internet and was criticized for that, YOU TOO are taking the internet and HIM too seriously ...

Why get mad because he said if the PC was for spreadsheets of that Japanese games sucked ? ... isn't the same position he is taking ?


Everyone of us posting online about the things we love, like gaming, tend to be too much passionate about and tend to take a few statements a bit too personal, we should know more about the person on the other side of the keyboard and be a little less aggressive when some people thinks and writes ideas that we totally disagree with.

He has the right to express his thoughts and I think is very good that he does not have any filter on the stuff he writes, I prefer that to the usual PR and business driven comments of almost every developer.

The guy may be seen as a "diva" but those characters are welcome on the development community as long as they make good games.

... its a shame that the internet summons the worst of many people and many kids and adults spend too much time criticizing ANYTHING ... we can be more mature about this than Phil Fish, if you don't like his attitude, just ignore him ... but don't let that stop you from checking FEZ if you haven't tried it yet.

[Graham Mitchell]

Guys, I have read some of your opinions and if he took too seriously the internet and was criticized for that, YOU TOO are taking the internet and HIM too seriously ...

Why get mad because he said if the PC was for spreadsheets of that Japanese games sucked ? ... isn't the same position he is taking ?


Everyone of us posting online about the things we love, like gaming, tend to be too much passionate about and tend to take a few statements a bit too personal, we should know more about the person on the other side of the keyboard and be a little less aggressive when some people thinks and writes ideas that we totally disagree with.

He has the right to express his thoughts and I think is very good that he does not have any filter on the stuff he writes, I prefer that to the usual PR and business driven comments of almost every developer.

The guy may be seen as a "diva" but those characters are welcome on the development community as long as they make good games.

... its a shame that the internet summons the worst of many people and many kids and adults spend too much time criticizing ANYTHING ... we can be more mature about this than Phil Fish, if you don't like his attitude, just ignore him ... but don't let that stop you from checking FEZ if you haven't tried it yet.

I'm not freaking out. Im very calmly stating that he is an elitist. If he didnt want you to think that, he wouldn't act this way.

And if I was a publisher, I wouldn't want this guy in my development stable. This kind of behavior alienates potential customers, which is bad for business.

[eskobar]

This kind of behavior alienates potential customers, which is bad for business.

In this matter you are right, that may be the cause that FEZ wasn't nearly as successful as Braid or Limbo ... although Braid was a superior product in my opinion.

I support a theory of another fellow member regarding problems with development and the sky high hype as the real reason for the cancellation, but in the end he will release FEZ II ... well, i hope :)

[Damaramu]

http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/aqjip.jpg?w=513&h=246

[Rob2600]

People don't have better things to do than have internet fights with this guy?

http://www.thebitbag.com/wp-content/themes/magazine_explorer/functions/theme/thumb.php?src=http://www.thebitbag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Fez-2-Phil-Fish-490x274.jpg&w=650&h=280&zc=1&a=c

[The Adventurer]

People don't have better things to do than have internet fights with this guy?

http://www.thebitbag.com/wp-content/themes/magazine_explorer/functions/theme/thumb.php?src=http://www.thebitbag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Fez-2-Phil-Fish-490x274.jpg&w=650&h=280&zc=1&a=c

So now we're judging him based on what he looks like?

[Tupin]

So now we're judging him based on what he looks like?
To be fair, he doesn't look much different than any indie developer, regardless of what kind of person they are.

Even Notch can manage to bite his tongue on occasion, why couldn't Fish?

[Gameguy]

There's a difference between indie developers and homebrewers, homebrewers basically make games because they enjoy making games. To them it's not about making money as a business.

Of course there's indie game makers that care about games, it's just that there's plenty who really don't and care more about the money or recognition. Lately everyone seems to love anything indie just because it's indie. Must be a hipster thing.

[JakeM]

I still want to know why he hates Japanese games or modern ones at least. Has he not played any Atlus games???? Or Nintendo ones?

[Tupin]

I still want to know why he hates Japanese games or modern ones at least. Has he not played any Atlus games???? Or Nintendo ones?
Or hell, what about the doujin scene? You know, the same one that made Cave Story? THE GAME THAT HIS GAME ESSENTIALLY WOULDN'T EXIST WITHOUT?

He hates it because he's pretentious and wants games to be artistic expressions of himself first, fun second. The Japanese games industry may have a lot of problems, but at least their homebrew/indie games are actually focused on fun.

[Kitsune Sniper]

http://i.imgur.com/ixTDBZi.jpg

Just... I don't know what to think anymore.

[Tupin]

Jesus Christ. He really is that goddamn stupid, huh? Pardon the language, but man. Going on /v/ and pretending to be a fan, but not even noticing that your screenshot clearly gives yourself away?

This is either a man's ego slowly crumbling that he doesn't know how to deal with or the absolute worst form of viral marketing in existence. If it's the latter, wow. Either way, he has no idea how to interact with people online at all. Why would you go to 4chan, then?

[Sulz]

I, uh...wow. Just wow. Assuming someone didn't just screencap the twitter post and add the delete button in, this is a new low.

Fish needs to seek help.

[JakeM]

Wow, I know not to go to 4chan, but this guy is absolutely asking for it by going there. He shouldnt even make a post without the delete option on there, he shouldnt go t o4chan at all.

I wish he would make Fez 2 after all this, lets see how he bounces back. Or maybe another game dealing with all the hate he has in him and has received.