Phil Fish: Gaming's Most Hated Developer

Phil Fish created Fez, a massively successful indie game. People LOVE Fez, but HATE Phil Fish. Today we discuss why, as well as why Phil disappeared from the internet.

Visual Sources:
#Fez #PhilFish

[About]

"He didn't have the best social skills" = Threatening to kill your ex and/or yourself.

[baddragonite]

Fun fact: The Japanese developer who Phil Fish went off on his rant about Japanese games on stage is named Makoto Goto and he's had a pretty long running career in the industry both in AAA and Indie

[leakyabstraction]

There is a difference between being socially awkward/inexperienced and being a total jerk who lashes out with pathological levels of hatred to any criticism.

[rehfeuge]

How long has it been since Fez? The reality is: most people genuinely have no memory of him now.

[BloodruneEnt.]

There’s a problem with Fez winning two awards from the same indie events when the rules explicitly stated the same game couldn’t be put on the listing if it previously won an award before. It won that second award on the technicality that the more finished game was somehow “different”, when it wasn’t.

Many indie devs at the time, much smaller, were upset because they were ignored and were just as outraged by the fact Fez won an award and got resubmitted another year after its development finished and won another.

Yes it’s tragic he let criticism get to him, but most of that criticism was well warranted when him and those closely tied to him scammed out a lot of smaller indie devs who already have it rough trying to break into the industry for a chance to win is gated off to a small circle of friends that ignored how the events were poorly handled for years from the compliants of a majorityof event attendees. I don’t believe Him, his company, and those folks should’ve been doxxed, but he honestly did himself no favors when he let any of that get to him.

[TigerKirby]

Phil Fish is perhaps the literal definition of Twitter toxicity, and maybe the first true time Twitter toxicity ever became a mainstream thing. People with no understanding of what they're talking about yelling at each other and turning everything into a personal attack.

[gmilh]

5:49 [Japanese developers] your time has passed.
Miyazaki Hidetaka: and I took that personally.

[jikal]

Phil's got strong Reddit mod energy

[GatDua]

That whole GDC thing really bothers me, not just Phil but how it seems everyone laughed with him.

[zzzzzz-rnoh]

We need the Japanese version of Phil Fish to tell western developers they suck now and motivate them to fix themselves.

[marcussmithwick]

I remember messaging him om Facebook after watching the movie as a kid saying how amazing his game was and how I was "sorry for all the bullshit he went through" and he blocked me 😂😂😂

[doordashh]

"japanese games suck" wow, that didint age too well did it, phil? 😂

[meadebe]

I disagree with your assessment. Phil was having problems in the game industry before he was famous, and it can be argued that he wasn't a good person to work with. He 100% deserves the hate, specially since it's apparent he hasn't really changed. Like he canceled a game and or games because he couldn't handle critics, not even critics of his game, people critical of him

[I_am_a_human_not_a_commodity]

*Things I learned in this video:*
_Being an asshole is okay as long as:_
-You apologize right after
-There's context
-Someone else does much worse

[Catkeeper]

I can't agree. He wasn't just an arsehole, he was mean spirited, arrogant, and unable to take what he dished out.

He was able tear into an entire country on stage, treating the guy that asked like he repped all other devs, and then when he's a little bit criticised himself resorts to telling people to go kill themselves.

Phil Fish may have apologised since but he didn't stop being an arse. And while the Japanese gentleman may have thanked him for the motivation, that doesn't absolve him.

I too thank my school bullies for teaching me how to take a punch to the face, I'm not about to say that made punching people in the face excusable.

[cynthia-oprx]

Phil's story is a tragedy to me. He's clearly talented and clearly cares deeply about the craft. He just happens to have the worst combination of personality traits imaginable for his situation. In a world where he had a development partner who was less of an asshole to help him with media I think he could have done so much.

[NekoHazrd]

Phil is just a baby that can't handle any type of criticism, be it constructive or not. He has been rude af since the begining for no reason. Treat people how you want to be treated or face the consequences of your own actions.

[teetea]

While there were things Japanese devs could have been doing better at the time, Phil wasn't giving criticism, he took an opportunity to blatantly insult them to their faces in order to boost his own ego. Phil never learned from past negative interactions, refused to self-reflect, and refused to try and grow into a better person. Phil absolutely deserved to be chased out of the industry.

[chaoticcritical]

Out of curiosity with the Japanese games thing-how did the media blow it out of proportion? He was being ridiculously disrespectful to a guy who asked an innocent question.

[martuuk]

The Japanese dev thanking Phil probably wasn’t genuine gratitude. The Japanese have different cultural protocols when it comes to business (one of the reasons Bill Gates flunked hard over there trying to pitch the first XBox) and I think this is one of them. It’s all about face. I’m certain he worked harder but not because he felt gratitude toward Phil, but telling the public he had gratitude allows him to be seen as gracious and the better man.