Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Add it to the list of great Internet meltdowns: Phil Fish has officially cancelled production of FEZ II and left the game industry, seemingly for good. He made it very public after a series of tweets, mostly directed at Marcus Beer (@AnnoyedGamer) after Fish told him that he wouldn't comment on the XBox One's changes in it's self-publishing policies. Some of the gems were "Look at your life and compare it to mine then kill yourself." and "I fucking HATE this industry".

Now it's easy to point and laugh at Mr. Fish and say, "You loser. Grow up and stop taking everything so personal." which is what the Internet as a whole is doing right now, but it needs to be said that Phil Fish has probably gotten more shit in his time than all of the other indie developers combined. What with the delay of FEZ due to circumstances beyond his control, his outspoken views on Japan's current-gen games, and what people perceive as a general air of superiority, Fish has been in more shit storm than a proctological weatherman. And he's come out of it (for the most part) looking, well, not great per se, but like someone who likes to make video games, not matter what anybody else says about them.

Which is why it so surprises me that this would be the thing that caused him to bow out of the industry. For one thing, no offense to Marcus Beer, but he's not the most well-known of game journalists, and overall, his comments against Fish were childish and uncalled for. And for another thing, it had to do with an issue that, to be honest, isn't that big of issue, at least from my point of view. The whole "self-publishing" deal was never one of the XBox One's  hot button issues. It was maybe 4th (behind the online check-in, used games, and mandatory Kinect issues), and to be perfectly honest, after the DRM reversal, I'm sure a large number of gamers saw it coming.

But I think it has to do with a much larger issue: is Phil Fish the mouthpiece of the indie game movement? is he the guy heading the charge? Certainly, he's one of the more outspoken developers, but does he, as a person, want to be the go-to guy when a news site needs a quote? And to be honest, I don't think he wants to be that. I think the industry has made him have to be vocal against all the shit he gets for every thing he tweets, every blurb in every magazine. They've turned Phil Fish into a defensive asshole. They've created this themselves.

But is leaving the industry the right move? Probably not, at least not in the long run. Sure, right now, I'm sure Phil Fish is loving the fact that he doesn't have to deal with all that bullshit. But in the long run, will he want to be remembered as that guy who got mad on Twitter and cancelled a game that thousands of people were looking forward too? I don't think so. So here's my advice to Phil Fish: make FEZ II. Make it good. Make the industry choke the words they said about you. Then, and only then, can you truly be happy.