8 Times When Developers Should Have Bit Their Tongue

Table of Contents

• 8 Times When Developers Should Have Bit Their Tongue
• "I think that [single-player] model is finished"
• "You think you do, but you don't"
• "Do you guys not have phones?"
• "It just works"
• "Sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes”
• “We don't call them lootboxes. We look [at them] as surprise mechanics”
• "Gamers are the worst f***ing people."

"Gamers are the worst f***ing people."

Can you remember Fez? It's a highly regarded retro platformer, the protagonist of which discovers that the world he lives in is not two-dimensional after all. The controversy we're talking about concerns the creator of this indie game. It all started before the release, in March 2012. The infamous incident took place on the GDC panel, during the presentation of the Indie Game: The Movie documentary. That picture shows the life of independent game developers and sheds light on the problems they faced during production. In addition to authors of Braid and Super Meat Boy, it also features Phil Fish himself – the creator of Fez.

When it was time for the Q&A, a participant in the Japanese audience (quickly identified as Makoto Goto – also a developer himself) praised the film and expressed a positive surprise with the fact that an important part of the inspiration for the creators were Japanese games like Super Mario Bros. or Metroid. He then asked for Phil Fish's opinion about modern games from that country. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't too polite.

The whole speech was accompanied by laughter, seemingly from most people present in the room. Of course, the Goto wasn't amused. Judging by the expression on his face, he felt rather offended. The situation was somewhat mitigated by subsequent statements, in which, in essence, contemporary Japanese games were scolded for giving too much of a handicap. Contrary to, for example, the first Zelda, which threw the player on the deep end of a dangerous world and required finding out the goals on your own. There's a lot of truth in this. One disclaimer that we would add to this statement is that it's true for all games in general – not just Japanese ones. Back then, the trend of leading players by the hand and explaining everything to them like they were five was already prevalent. However, there's no point denying it – in some respects, Japanese productions were definitely inferior back then. Either way, you can listen to the statements in the video below.

Makoto Goto contained his emotions, thanked for the feedback, and then posted on Twitter that he saw Phil's statement as an incentive to improve the quality of Japanese game dev. The widely understood enthusiasts of electronic entertainment were much less forgiving. Especially those actively participating in the neoGAF forum. In the thread, Phil was accused of arrogance, ignorance, being boorish and simplistic, and even racist.

Fish apologized on Twitter (he hardly posts anything at the moment), stating that he was behaving inappropriately and that he could have expressed his opinion more politely. However, this doesn't change much, because at the same time he added that the games from Japan are (to put it mildly) not any good. Such an attitude was not conducive to improving his image, so the situation deteriorated more and more. Phil got into an ugly mess until he finally stated that "Gamers are the worst f***ing people." And it's all because of individuals who have promised to pirate his game just because they just don't like him.

Eventually, Phil Fish pulled away from the industry, insisting that he wanted nothing to do with it. It was then that he announced that Fez II was canceled.