Phil Fish: The Indie Game Dev Who Lost His Mind
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Killer8
Member
Mean spirited? Absolutely.
Correct? Makoto Goto, the man he was answering, said as much:
Mega Man creator and legendary Capcom producer Keiji Inafune (who himself crashed out with Mighty No. 9) was so disillusioned with the state of the Japanese industry in 2009 that he said after a TGS show:
He later praised Fish's comments as honest.
Kojima also warned at the time, in more constructive terms, that Japanese developers lacked global outlook and technological skills. No shit when so many ignored HD development for handhelds, phones and the Wii.
It was a dire time for Japan. This was the gen of Final Fantasy XIII ("HD towns are hard") and Resident Evil 6, some of the worst AAA disasters of all time. I think either people were just too young to remember all this, or are viewing the era with extreme revisionism just because Japan had a huge comeback in the eight gen.
"But Japan are experts in game design!" - yeah, and in the time when Phil Fish made his comments those experts were balls deep making fucking gacha for iPhone and outsourcing their development to Canadians.
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Ah yes, a con man who overpromised and underdelivered big time, and another man who's games have all been wannabe American movies are just the perfect people to judge the state of Japanese game making, in just any time period ever.
March Climber
Member
This is what it probably is, mixed with forgetfulness. We are about to enter a new gen in a few years and the nostalgia goggles have already been fully activated for the 2006-2013 generation.
That gen had a lot of great stuff, but it had a lot of BS and snake oil too.
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LavitzSlambert
Member
Fez was, and still is, a good game. Phil Fish was, and still is, a little crybabby whiner.
Shifty1897
Member
Bro I am a huge Japanese games nut but he was right at the time, 2007-2013 was a rough era for Japanese games. There were a few hits but this was during the time all the Japanese publishers were shitting the bed. Final Fantasy sucked, Resident Evil sucked, even Zelda sucked at that point.
MiguelItUp
Member
Fez was a great game, but man was Phil something, lmao.
Killer8
Member
Perhaps if the two Japanese studios who made the game for him hadn't spent the majority of that generation making handslop (many such cases), the result could've been better:
Lightbreak
Member
FEZ is a masterpiece
ozz ex machina
Member
He made an incredible game. At the perfect time to make that exact type of game. It's just a shame he never got to make more but at the end of the day - that one game is still a much more impressive legacy than lots of game developers who work their entire life in the industry. So respect to that.
Werewolf Jones
Member
He was a pretentious hipster faggot with bad taste in games.
Neon Xenon
Member
Hope this video covers the one particular Phil Fish shitfit where he went on 4chan to try and sockpuppet as someone mad at the announcement of Fez II being cancelled...only to get exposed in the very same thread because he couldn't bother to even try covering his tracks.
Even with Fez being revered (haven't played it, I've got no opinion on it), Phil Fish earned his shitty reputation as one of the progenitors of the "Obnoxious narcissist who can't log the fuck off from social media and keeps melting down" situation that you've seen so often in entertainment in the years after.
Even with Fez being revered (haven't played it, I've got no opinion on it), Phil Fish earned his shitty reputation as one of the progenitors of the "Obnoxious narcissist who can't log the fuck off from social media and keeps melting down" situation that you've seen so often in entertainment in the years after.
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
I thought Fez was boring
DKehoe
Member
I remember the thread for it on here was really cool because people in it were collaborating to piece the secrets together and you could see the community piecing it together in real time.
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saintjules
Gold Member
I saw Phil I fish and I I thought Phil Spencer had a new nickname.
PHIL W SPENCER FISH III
Durin
Member
I'll never forget that one section of the Indie Game- The Movie, where Phil Fish is swimming in a pool by himself to build this lame dramatic tension. The interview asks "What happens if you can't finish the game?", and Phil responds: "I will kill myself".
The most cringe millennial bullshit I've ever watched, felt like my eyes were gonna roll up and bounce inside my skull. Fez was neat, but Phil Fish is such a hack douche of a human being.
The most cringe millennial bullshit I've ever watched, felt like my eyes were gonna roll up and bounce inside my skull. Fez was neat, but Phil Fish is such a hack douche of a human being.
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Hero of Spielberg
Member
I loved Fez. I think it was mostly the soundtrack that got me, but I also loved the cozy pixel art style which wasn't completely done to death at the time for Indies.
Orbital2060
Member
FEZ is great but almost too complicated for me, if you want to solve all of the puzzles. I got caught up in some of them but it was tough.
I think I read that he ended on bad terms with Microsoft and didnt want to publish on Xbox anymore? FEZ is one of the few great games that still is not backward compatible which is odd. There is a PC version still available on the store. But no Xbox BC.
I think I read that he ended on bad terms with Microsoft and didnt want to publish on Xbox anymore? FEZ is one of the few great games that still is not backward compatible which is odd. There is a PC version still available on the store. But no Xbox BC.
Buy FEZ | Xbox
Gomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space.
www.xbox.com
darrylgorn
Member
The guy was totally right about Japanese games though. Most of Kojima's games suck ass and the only Souls-like game worth playing is the original Dark Souls.
in my opinion 
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People really seem to forget this. The Japanese devs were not prepared for the HD transition at all.It is okay to give companies their credit for being first time innovators, but when the HD generation hit, a lot of things were starting to move forward without them and quite a few devs needed a wake up call.
I think people here are forgetting the split personality in gaming that happened during the PS360 gen. There is a reason this image of the 2011 list only has a few JP games on it:
And the image is still missing huge games like Minecraft. This is what gamers thought of 2011. That's 10 years after this:
The JP:NA ratio flipped in just over one generation.
Barakov
Member
Japanese games are better than ever and he barely registers as a one hit wonder. Delicious karma I say.
Wilhelm_85
Gold Member
The absolute worst of the millenial hipster developers.
poodaddy
Member
Guy's an insufferable prick.
He was right about Japanese games at the time of the statement, weebs got butt hurt because they took it too seriously, but Japanese devs weren't firing on all cylinders for a while there.
Fez is outstanding.
He talks way too much shit considering he only released one game, regardless of how good it is.
He probably could make a great game again if he could pull his head out of his taint long enough to stop wiffin his own scent and get to work, but it seems he's content to be a one trick pony.
All of these things can be, and are, true.
He was right about Japanese games at the time of the statement, weebs got butt hurt because they took it too seriously, but Japanese devs weren't firing on all cylinders for a while there.
Fez is outstanding.
He talks way too much shit considering he only released one game, regardless of how good it is.
He probably could make a great game again if he could pull his head out of his taint long enough to stop wiffin his own scent and get to work, but it seems he's content to be a one trick pony.
All of these things can be, and are, true.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I agree that there's a lot of revisionist history going on here - Japanese devs were pretty awful at adapting to HD development and, aside from a couple of gems here and there like Ninja Gaiden II and Lost Odyssey, it was a rough time. That said, I think that only really applies to HD platforms - Japanese devs were still pumping out a seemingly endless string of really good games on the Wii and the DS during that era. The creative spark and capability was still there... just absent from the flashier platforms at the time. It was depressing seeing devs like Capcom go ham on making mobile garbage, but that's far from all those studios were doing at the time.
Either way, I think the bigger issue with his comment was that it was so reductive - stated as though the Japanese hadn't been a completely dominant force for almost 30 years leading up to the launch of his shitty game (which itself was clearly inspired by much better Japanese games). He had a platform, and he used it to be a twat.
elbourreau
Member
There is A LOT of insufferable cunt devs in video game industry. The only things is that succes bring them into the light. Talk to game designers and programers, you have a 50/50 chance to get someone as a dick as Phil Fish or Blow...
Sad but true.
Sad but true.
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Perhaps Inafune should have taken his own advice and let a western studio develop his precious game, then, no?
And people really seem to forget that you can make great games in sub-HD resolution, so HD has nothing to do with this.
Super Mario Galaxy, a game as SD as they come, still shits on a big portion of existing video games from a very high place.
People also forget that the general dudebro attitude of devs and gamers alike in that era made western games particularly appealing in spite of not being perfect from several points of view. And that western games that tried to imitate Japanese games (ie, Little Big Planet) weren't as great as people like to remember.
You don't go for such a sweeping statement and expect to not be roasted. Fish believed he was above an entire industry because he made ONE good game. The greatest irony is that, today, his game would be mostly seen as pretentious, fart-sniffing indie shit, of which the market is more than saturated.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Here's the truth:
Fez came out in 2012, and took 5 years to make - a ridiculous amount of time for the period, especially for a game of its scope.
That gen had been a rough time for Japanese devs, but you'd have to be an idiot not to notice the signs of things turning around creatively by then.
FROM had put out Demon's AND Dark Souls in 2009 and 2011 respectively - you know BOTH games within the time that Phil was working on his magnum-opus!
Nier came out in 2010, Bayonetta and Yakuza 3 in 2009, Persona 4 in 2008...
Its not hard to find successes outside of what SE were doing!
Fez came out in 2012, and took 5 years to make - a ridiculous amount of time for the period, especially for a game of its scope.
That gen had been a rough time for Japanese devs, but you'd have to be an idiot not to notice the signs of things turning around creatively by then.
FROM had put out Demon's AND Dark Souls in 2009 and 2011 respectively - you know BOTH games within the time that Phil was working on his magnum-opus!
Nier came out in 2010, Bayonetta and Yakuza 3 in 2009, Persona 4 in 2008...
Its not hard to find successes outside of what SE were doing!
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existensmaximum
Member
Fez is one of few really good indie games ever, IMO. True masterpiece.
Radical_3d
Member
He said that after Lost Planet, Eternal Sonata and several other HD classics. He was no right.
Looking back I don't know why I didn't like him. Guy's an asshole which is my kind of personality.
Liopleurodon
Member
I had absolutely no problems with Japanese games of mid 2000s - early 2010s era.
Wildebeest
Member
There was no massive innovation in "HD Development". In the 360 era the "HD" presentation of western games was, if anything, even worse than Japanese games with all the smearing, bad upscaling, and frame drops. The hardware simply was not up to the job of HD yet. What was happening was that PC developers were really finding their feet on consoles and it was an eye opener for a lot of console only gamers. There was a serious grass is greener effect and many of the more traditional console type games were overlooked in favor of some very mid and dumbed down PC type games.
Drell
Member
There's a difference between objectively criticizing what big Japanese studios were giving us back then versus being an entitled asshole allowing yourself to shit on the whole output of Japan when you've done ONE SINGLE GAME.
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