Phil Fish, the Death of the Artist, and the Future of Video Games

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regularassmilk

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Edited By regularassmilk

My friend Jacob is playing through Fez for the first time, and posted that he loves the game, in spite of all of the Phil Fish drama. It really got me to thinking, did Phil Fish really deserve the ire of the community? Did he really do anything to become the gaming pariah he is now eternally infamous for being?

No. The answer is no. Do you know what artists do? Or even creative types, if you can't be bothered to call Phil Fish an artist? They say stupid shit. Sometimes they are brash, sometimes they are mean. That's the tradeoff, though. That's how we get the art: through these often troubled, always different people. In my opinion, Phil Fish's public stoning spoke a lot more about the state of the community than it did the comments he made.

So that guy is an asshole. Jonathan Blow seems really pretentious. If I met him, I might even think he's an ass. Does that make Braid a piece of shit? Does that make me discredit Blow, and attack him?

Fez might be an independent, pixel-art platformer but I bet if you played the game you liked it. Many folks went as far as to call it a work of genius, and if it's not, it's very inspired and well-made. It's very fun, and very cute! I do not believe something so saccharine could be created from someone who is a genuine asshole.

Phil Fish maybe received the most flak ever after his infamous comment that "Gamers are the worst fucking people". The culture we have created though, is toxic. I'm not talking about most of this website, because I believe that Giant Bomb is a great website with a great community. I hope that none of us are homophobic, misogynist, or anything like that. I hope none of us have neck beards.

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But I think we can agree that it's the stereotype, and it's not unfounded. Everything always sucks and nothing is ever good. So many people will bitch about getting the same game over and over again, but do they want a new game, or do they want a new way to blow someones fucking head off?

When I first saw the trailer for Watch_Dogs, I was smitten. But as time went on I cooled off and tried to look at the game piece by piece. Full disclosure: I haven't played Watch_Dogs, but allow me to make an assumption. I bet when the heat is on and the noodles are boiling, I'm going to be running for cover to blast some dudes away. I'm going to be running around a corner to beat someone to death with a baton. I'm going to be blowing up police cars. I'm going to be running over pedestrians. That phone is going to be the last thing on my mind, save for the 1-3 functions I find genuinely useful.

Listen, though, because I'm not really going to shit on Watch_Dogs. I'm still excited about it. It's still one of the games that are pushing me in the direction of the now-current generation of consoles. But I just beat Max Payne 3 last week for the third time.

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It's a great game. It's definitely in my favorites, even if its a bullet-romp that's full of white antiheroes and slow motion. We don't need more Max Payne's, though. This isn't where gaming stops! But I don't know where it goes anymore. Take the InFamous franchise, where not only is your character a superhero, but an unlicensed one that gives Sucker Punch free reign to do whatever they want with their characters. But somehow, I'm still shooting people? I'm still throwing grenades, I'm still shooting rockets--but it's not with bullets, so it's supposed to be different.

Games aren't bad, and they're not getting any worse so to speak. I just don't know where games are going. I caught myself a couple times this year pointing in the direction of the independent, but is that the answer? Can we really expect studios like Hello Games, Supergiant, and Devolver to be the true future of games? Fez sold a million copies not too long ago, and that's a big deal. One million is a big number. But Call of Duty: Ghosts is a game that is less than 7 months old, and has sold 14,500,000 copies. To reiterate, the state of AAA gaming involves bigger budgets, bigger, fragmented studios, and narrower avenues of gameplay.

I'm so excited for E3 because I have it in my head that it has to be good. I expect to see at least a glimpse of the future of gaming, and I just have no idea what that is. I sort of feel bad that I'm only interested in indie games, emulators, and my 3DS right now because I feel like that is somehow untrue to "real" gaming. I want to like AAA titles, I want to want to play them. I don't care about any of them, though. I'm still totally mystified by this console launch, and I feel like when the the last two gens came out of the gate, I could feel it when I woke up in the morning. I could look at cardboard boxes on store shelves in wonder thinking about the brave new worlds that awaited me, and now with the new gen, I can't even think of what game I would buy with either system aside from Infamous Second Son or Titanfall, two games I have only meager interest in.

So here we are, bombardiers. Where do video games go? What happens now? What is happening now?

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TruthTellah

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I'm actively looking forward to Phil Fish's next game. :)

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falserelic

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#2  Edited By falserelic

Phils right.

Gamers are some of the worst fucking people.

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TheManWithNoPlan

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I'm still bummed about Fez 2 being cancelled. :(

Also,

I'm actively looking forward to Phil Fish's next game. :)

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JasonR86

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I really like Fez and would probably like a Fez 2. But the way Phil Fish handles himself leads me to believe I wouldn't want to hang out with the guy. For example, during a sit down with Giant Bomb, when Jeff and Patrick asked him if he would make another game and his response was to record on his personal phone Patrick asking him the question and then himself saying 'no' leads me to think the dude just loves all this drama.

Which I don't have to like him to like what he creates. But it also leads me to not care one bit about his state of mind following drama.

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joshwent

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#5  Edited By joshwent

@regularassmilk said:

Do you know what artists do... They say stupid shit. Sometimes they are brash, sometimes they are mean. That's the tradeoff, though. That's how we get the art...

I'll never understand people arguing this point. Excusing shitty behavior because of some arbitrary trait is nothing more than pretending you're not an asshole. I've heard countless times in my life people saying shit like, "Sorry about that angry outburst, but you know, I'm half Puerto Rican." or "Yeah, I'm pretty forgetful, but I'm a Pisces, we're all like that.".

Picasso and Dalí are two of my favorite artists, but they were also assholes. They didn't have to be that way to be artists, and they didn't become that way because they were artists, they were also just assholes.

I'd never even use such a strong word to describe Phil Fish, but he said some dumb and intentionally incendiary things to the masses on multiple occasions. Not a horrible crime, but there's no excuse for that shittiness, just as there's no excuse for any of the random folks saying shitty things back at him.

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cmblasko

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Why should artists get a pass for being assholes? Does being shitty to people fuel their creativity or something? Why would anyone want to support such behavior?

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AlexanderSheen

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@cmblasko said:

Why should artists get a pass for being assholes? Does being shitty to people fuel their creativity or something? Why would anyone want to support such behavior?

Because it's art.

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Draugen

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So here's my problem with people like Fish and Blow. They are right, the community around games is toxic. It's really bad. But the way they behave, they are not spotlights that point that out, and draw that toxicity into the light for all to see. The don't stand against the culture of snark, and personal attacks. They actively contribute to it. They are as much a part of the problem as the next asshole, slinging their muck across the internet. Artist and creative people aren't by default brash and mean. I know alot of creative people, and a very small number of them behave like for example Phil Fish. All this said, I don't think they deserve the bile that has been spewed over them. But they have had a hand in creating it themselves.

As for the future of games, I imagine it will be alot like the present of games. Something for everyone. Big games are going to play it safer that smaller games, while the smaller games will try out new, inventive things, that in turn will benefit the bigger games. And that's fine with me.

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deactivated-60dda8699e35a

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@cmblasko said:

Why should artists get a pass for being assholes? Does being shitty to people fuel their creativity or something? Why would anyone want to support such behavior?

This sums up my thoughts. Look, Phil Fish was an interesting person, I admit, but he did absolutely NOTHING to make himself a likable person. He was a grade A asshole on twitter, lambasting large communities and being VERY opinionated as well. That isn't necessarily bad I suppose, but it certainly didn't help that he appeared to be very emotional and incapable of dealing with the stress that his own actions caused. Seriously, this guy needed a Public Relations Representative so badly, or he just needed to stay off of social media sites entirely, either one would have worked wonders for the man.

I also want to comment on another thing: just because he's an artist doesn't give him the right to be as rude as he was. I'm sorry, but the guy isn't going to get a free pass because he created an indie game that is lauded as one of the best indie games to come out. His personality was absolutely toxic, and he was a bad mix with an already volatile video game community.

On a final note, I just want to ask people about FEZ. I played this game recently (got it on sale in a humble bundle), and maybe it's because I went in thinking it would be amazing, but I was really let down by it. The whole shifting world gimmick was interesting, but not really as hugely innovative as I thought it would be. It just felt like a typical 2D platform game. Maybe I'll pick it up again now that my expectations are non-existent, but seriously, why do people say this game is so amazing? I'm just not seeing it.

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Turambar

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#10  Edited By Turambar

@falserelic said:

Phils right.

Gamers are some of the worst fucking people.

He's right. He himself is one of the worst out of that terrible group, too.

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Jimbo

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He seemed like a dick so I didn’t bother playing his game. Worked for me.

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audioBusting

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#12  Edited By audioBusting

@cmblasko said:

Why should artists get a pass for being assholes? Does being shitty to people fuel their creativity or something? Why would anyone want to support such behavior?

It bothers me that we believe that assholes deserve to be punished for their asshole-ness. It's not that they should "get a pass", it's that we should not be hypocrites and be assholes to assholes. Our default behavior shouldn't be to fight fire with fire when it comes to social interactions. For some reason, we just don't behave like functional human beings when it comes to video game creators.

Edit: And how weird is it that we talk shit about big companies pulling off politically correct relationship and marketing for their customers, but when people be honest, and maybe show that they are not perfect as humans tend to be, they get shamed by the internet.

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cmblasko

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#13  Edited By cmblasko

@audiobusting said:

@cmblasko said:

Why should artists get a pass for being assholes? Does being shitty to people fuel their creativity or something? Why would anyone want to support such behavior?

It bothers me that we believe that assholes deserve to be punished for their asshole-ness. It's not that they should "get a pass", it's that we should not be hypocrites and be assholes to assholes. Our default behavior shouldn't be to fight fire with fire when it comes to social interactions. For some reason, we just don't behave like functional human beings when it comes to video game creators.

I totally agree about not "fighting fire with fire" which is why I have mostly ignored anything Phil Fish related since Fez was released. I don't agree with his attitude so I try not to pay any attention to him. This might be the first time I've commented in a Phil Fish thread.

I do want to note that I thought Phil came off as very likable during the GDC (I think it was GDC? The one with drunk Dave Lang and the Dose One performance) after-hours show. Maybe he just reacts poorly to being in the high-pressure situations - both customer-facing and internal - that game development inevitably leads to.

And to be clear, I am not just talking about artists or video game developers; I mean anyone who gets a social platform for whatever reason and uses it to lash out at people.

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RonGalaxy

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#14  Edited By RonGalaxy

I look at what happened to Phil Fish, and could totally see that happening to me if I was in a similar position. I could see it happening to anyone, really.

What did he really do? He said a couple of things that weren't even that outrageous, people anonymously attacked him because they didn't like what he stood for (having an artistic voice in gaming) and he argued back. I would totally do that, I would take every single negative comment seriously and I would become instantly defensive (to a fault. lots of people with self conscious issues act out like that). I've told people to choke on my dick before in disagreement; he just said it to 10's of thousands of people behind a 20 ft thick 1 way mirror.

Another thing people said was "he's a public figure and should have known better. he abused his power". I picture this as people thinking Phil has a megaphone, compared to everyone else in the 'crowd' having only their vocal chords. Sure, a megaphone is loud and everyone in the crowd is going to hear it, but when the crowd begins to riot and spit vitriol at the top of their lungs, Phil might as well be screaming into an empty can. The power of an anonymous hoard supersede the power he has as a public figure. From my perspective, the people who attacked him were abusing their power (of anonymity) just as much, if not more than he was his own power.

At the end of the day, he made the right choice to walk away. Sometimes when you start a fire like that, there's no controlling it. You gotta let it burn itself out. And I think we'll be seeing more from him. Why else would he go forward with the playstation versions of Fez? Polytron is his company, and he gave the okay to do that, even though Fez is directly tied to him and all the baggage he has.

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Rowr

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#15  Edited By Rowr

@regularassmilk said:

Games aren't bad, and they're not getting any worse so to speak. I just don't know where games are going. I caught myself a couple times this year pointing in the direction of the independent, but is that the answer? Can we really expect studios like Hello Games, Supergiant, and Devolver to be the true future of games? Fez sold a million copies not too long ago, and that's a big deal. One million is a big number. But Call of Duty: Ghosts is a game that is less than 7 months old, and has sold 14,500,000 copies. To reiterate, the state of AAA gaming involves bigger budgets, bigger, fragmented studios, and narrower avenues of gameplay.

Both exist side by side and there is room for both. Though it seems bigger budget titles will continue to rise in costs to develop and remain high risk. For that reason as it has been going for the past few years we will see fewer and fewer - yet generally higher quality titles. In the mean time a slew of indie titles will keep us entertained.

As for this year, we will probably see some actual big games start to come out (as opposed to the usual early console tech demo titles). Then there will probably be another lull for the next year aside from the annual franchises (the cods and assassins creeds etc) as developers move onto their next flagship projects, in that time a few indie titles will breakout. Recent history seems to indicate a few titles announced for the Christmas holidays are more likely to be pushed into the first half of next year.

As far as big changes I expect to see a lot of the big budget titles released at the start of this console generation expanded on with DLC throughout the cycle, as opposed to seeing a sequel made on a new engine. I expect developers to try and crack the MOBA on consoles formula, or at least attempt to multiple times and fail, I expect a rise in focus on E sports and E sports friendly games with a focus on community and connectivity, though this seems more likely to arrive within a year or two. I feel that the console makers themselves will jump onto the E sports train to use it to try and push their console sales.

It's obvious the independent title has already risen to be as big a part of the industry when looked at collectively, and it's probably easy to forget but this is only really happened in the last two years. Your probably going to see more big studios doing small titles on the side, your probably going to see successful indie studios get more ambitious and then getting bought out or busting.

Godus will probably release being better than everyone expected, yet nothing that was promised. Everyone will complain about Peter Molyneux to which he will apologise and make big promises for his next title.

I forget when Star Citizen is coming out. But that's going to be a BIG deal.

Steam will probably inexplicably cancel half the stuff they have developed for the past two years and never speak of it again. Most of it you will never see. Steam will also make changes to the way it lays out the store, they are either going to cut down on what they let on Steam, or they are going to take it full retard ITunes app store.

Real time strategy games and slight variants will rise from the dead and have a brief resurgence in popularity on PC, some of that success will be attempted to port to console with no success. RTS will die again for 10 years.

Game streaming technologies will be further developed and marketed. Probably still a few years away from any mainstream use unless someone totally changes the game. Given that Nvidia shield can now play your PC games outside of your own network through a internet connection, expect Sony to probably follow suit with the Vita. I'm not convinced this whole second screen/Microsoft glass/whatever thing is done, expect some things this E3 regarding companion apps or streaming that is more meaningful.

Well I could probably write another 12 paragraphs but that seems like enough to mull on for now.

Edit - Oh i almost forgot. Phil fish is the worst/best, blah blah blah. I really hate/love what he does etc.

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xyzygy

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#16  Edited By xyzygy

When Phil said that gamers are some of the worst people, I actually think he's right to an extent. Online, gamers just complain and bitch when things don't go their way or when they "take sides" and turn things into fanboy "discussion". It doesn't help when places like IGN and Kotaku post dumbass articles meant to fire these people up. But I'm sure these people are totally different in real life. Anonymity + Gamers = a real bad combo.

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Vuud

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The death of the artist was ruled a suicide.

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Petiew

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Honestly I don't think anyone deserves the kind of ridicule and hate that Phil Fish received on a daily basis, but the guy needed to learn when to stop being an asshole himself. There are always people with vendettas who just like to hate on others for no reason, but if you're going to refer to the people buying your product as the worst fucking people, then expect backlash.

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Icemael

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#20  Edited By Icemael

There are thousands of game developers (not to speak of artists in general) that are more creative, passionate and talented than Phil Fish and also not melodramatic, pretentious man-children.

At one point George Kamitani personally borrowed upwards of $200000 so he could keep making 2D games with eleven other guys at Vanillaware. Remember when he bitched and moaned and publicly said he might kill himself? Remember when he threw a fit and quit being a game developer because people were criticizing Dragon's Crown? I don't either.

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Soap

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#21  Edited By Soap

People handle stress and the public eye in incredibly different ways, Phil probably didn't handle everything as well as he could but who here can say they've not done or said something stupid while upset. The difference being you don't have all of the internet to point it out and call you out on it for the rest of time.

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deactivated-64162a4f80e83

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Phil Fish is largely right about the gaming community, unfortunately he's also one of the biggest offenders.

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tourgen

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#23  Edited By tourgen

Making a video game that you enjoy isn't an excuse for someone to be an insufferable asshole.

the majority of people are just fine creating interesting things without running their mouth. Phil's problem is that he is young, inexperienced, has poor impulse control, and thinks he's much more intelligent than he actually is. He's the archetypical hipster twat.

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ottoman673

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I don't think I'd mind Phil Fish saying that gamers are assholes if he himself weren't so pompous and admit that he, like those whom he catered to/made money off of, was the exact same. Same with Blow, honestly. As a result, I haven't (and probably never will) play Fez, much akin to how some never played Shadow Complex because of the affiliation with Orson Scott Card. If you shit on your audience, why should I pad your wallet, in spite of however good your game (or other piece of media) may be?

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generic_username

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@tourgen said:

the majority of people are just fine creating interesting things without running their mouth.

I don't think that's true.

Most of the art that people respect and love (look at music, movies, visual art) tends to be made by people who have an overwhelming desire to express their emotions.

All of them.

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generic_username

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#26  Edited By generic_username

Apologies for the double post, but I just think that maybe we need to look at these creative people who are dickheads, and maybe look at the reason why they're being dickheads.

You all remember Nirvana?

Kurt Cobain was an asshole. He said some incredibly shitty things about his fans, the media, and everyone else in the world. he was a hypocrite, and he couldn't take negative feedback from anyone without saying something back about it. The media loved to shit all over him. They loved it. It was such a good story, and he was such an easy target. If the internet was as big then as it is now, He would be having the same petty, borderline-psychotic arguments with people on twitter that Phil Fish does/did.

Now, Kurt Cobain actually killed himself, not just metaphorically, like Phil Fish did. But, you know, there's a good chance that there's something going on psychologically with him, and as someone who suffers from some forms of (admittedly minor) mental illness, and also considers himself a creator, I hate how much shit was slung at him.

And while being creative may not be a good excuse for being a dick, a mental illness isa perfectly good excuse for being an asshole.

[I feel like I should add that I personally don't enjoy Phil Fish's art as much as I enjoy Nirvana, and I'm not comparing the two talent-wise. Please don't take this as me saying "Phil Fish is the Kurt Cobain of video games" because I'm not saying that. I'm just making a comparison to another artist. I also have no idea if Phil actually suffers from any forms of mental illness, his behaviors have just suggested that to me. My speculation could be wrong, he could just be an asshole. I still don't think he deserved the public hanging he got. Justifying internet mob-mentality in any form is pretty gross, no matter who it's inflicted on.]

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baconandwaffles

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This topic gets me so riled up - both that artists/creatives can have their behavior excused in the name of art, and that being an asshole can be excused for speaking truth to power/the majority.

I can't really speak to Phil Fish, I don't know all the stuff he said, but the backlash I have seen does seem overblown. But that is another topic - so many people are willing to pile on, but aren't willing to engage more one on one, because they are afraid of exposing themselves to criticism...

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Hailinel

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@tourgen said:

the majority of people are just fine creating interesting things without running their mouth.

I don't think that's true.

Most of the art that people respect and love (look at music, movies, visual art) tends to be made by people who have an overwhelming desire to express their emotions.

All of them.

Having a desire to express all of their emotions doesn't give license to be an asshole. As others have noted, there are people more creative and more successful than Phil Fish that were never publicly an asshole to the extent that he has been or still is. There is a difference between being allowed to express one's emotions in full without being consumed by them, and an inability to keep one's emotions in check, particularly when under stress. One is a sign of maturity, the other is a sign of childish petulance.

Phil Fish is absolutely terrible at handling adversity. His natural response to it seems to be throwing fits or otherwise being melodramatic. His "I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude with Fez II is just one indicative factor of that. And when faced with adversity on social media, he doesn't just shut off his Twitter account and move on with his life and his work. He does what he can to poke the hornet nest with a stick and then screams indignance when the hornets have the audacity to sting him.

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baconandwaffles

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Is it wrong that I immediately knew who's neckbeard that was? Maybe I just watch too much football...

Spoiler! Andrew Luck

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generic_username

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#30  Edited By generic_username

@hailinel said:

There is a difference between being allowed to express one's emotions in full without being consumed by them, and an inability to keep one's emotions in check, particularly when under stress. One is a sign of maturity, the other is a sign of childish petulance.

Or, you know, mental illness.

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regularassmilk

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@cmblasko: They don't, but it doesn't devalue the games he makes/made. He didn't deserve to be shunned for making comments no matter how uninformed they were. Now, their is a clear line--I can see people not wanting to associate with media created by say the likes or Orson Scott Card due to his involvement with the movement against equality, but this is far different. It's not as heinous.

I'd even go as far to say he acted like a baby and in some alternate universe their exists a Phil Fish who walked away the bigger man but even if he was mouthy, he was probably a fragile guy. As somebody else pointed out, he's a young guy. Like every teenager in the world, they want to be out on their own and they are so independent and they don't need you, but that isn't the actual truth. They're still growing. They're still learning how to be human beings.

He made somewhere between a good game and a masterpiece. If nothing else, it was an original concept, and one of the most profound types of original at that: the kind that makes you go "Wow, why hasn't someone thought of this before?".

I think it's worth the trouble of trying to differentiate the media from its author. I think the members of MGMT come off like huge douchebags. But "Electric Feel" is still a really good song.