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[Column] General: Fez II: Sticks, Stones and Internet Drama
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Fez II and Phil Fish have inadvertently created an internet storm. In our latest Independency column, we take a look at the controversy and offer some pithy advice about the subject. Read on and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks to your always-on, nothing-is-sacred, every-idiot-with-a-keyboard-is-now-a-journalist information gathering, added to the bad-day-with-no-one-to-talk-me-down immediacy of shooting one’s mouth off, the crash and burn of the game Fez II (not to mention its creator, Phil Fish) was not only predictable, it was kind of inevitable.
Having read a whole host of commentary on the subject, not to mention having my eyes blistered by the angry mob, I have some thoughts of my own to add, if I may:
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Independency: Fez II: Sticks, Stones and Internet Drama.
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With that said, hopefully next time you write an article you write something worth reading. ( haha just kidding about that last part, have a nice day )
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
So.... Another human being figured out that people in general are vile bitter wretches that can not be trusted with a soft sponge, let alone the ability to communicate in a semi-secret fashion.
Generally artists should never be project managers or in charge of PR (if 5+ years of school and experience have told me anything). I am personally perplexed over what Fish thought would happen? That the internet would make an exception for him just because he made a good game...?
The again i am not advocating the "the SUN/FOX News" type of journalism that most so called "internet journalists" use.
Then in the end not a single frack will really be given about either man and some other developer will make a game and have a nervous meltdown.
This have been a good conversation
The allure of random positive feedback followed by the sucker punch of being randomly torn down all while the clock ticks on an overflowing box of intractable puzzles ... it must mess with one's sense of self-worth of even the most zen fo professionals. I was pretty much emotionally destroyed by a couple of years of a helpline job once upon a time and that was just one critic of my work at a time. I don't envy people trying to have whole careers in the fishbowl of social media and informal journalism.
Nice touch with the "Not Like Things" song, but Phil Fish proved he's an egotistical mess way before this recent explosion. It's a shame that Fez 2 had to be outright cancelled, instead of just being passed onto the other employee.
If you're going to get into a business where a lot of people have access to your product, you have to be able to handle criticism, unfounded or not. Apparently Fish didn't learn that in high school.
I can't help but laugh. Polygon as a company have created articles that are opinionated and have no actual fact or perspective in them.
I recall I think it was Fish, saying that computer/console gaming was dead and dying and tablet smartphone was the future. These kind of comments are made so much and have no analytical data that supports the claims its not even funny.
The articles linked in this report show how narcissistic he is, at any point that he is insulted he can't help but bite on it and show what a child he is. If he was true about his work he wouldn't care. Not to mention reading about how failed FEZ was. Really happy I didn't buy into the hype, constant crashes along with the patch deleting saves? How terrible of a programmer can you be to create such a bug ridden game for 5 years?
Forgot to add in that he was surprised that people commented about pirating his game because they don't like him. What does he expect when he lashes out at customers, and tells people to go die?
Steam: Neph
I have a different view of the topic. When did people become so needy that they need constant feedback from developers? Back in the day game's would get released and you'd play them. People wouldn't demand constant posts/feedback about where in the processes they were or what they were currently working on, they'd just play some games.
Now we have a point in time where if a developer doesn't comment every week or even every couple of days the fanatics go insane (increasingly so by the day) and get more and more riled up exploding over everything on the internet until a developer shows up says something that in fact isn't any different than what has been said before and the fanatics calm down again because there has been a post.
Where did this utter need for constant attention and constant feedback come from? I simply don't get it.
I think your point on the "corporate shield" falls apart pretty fast when you consider that Bioware's top writer quit Bioware today because she was sick of being harassed and having her children threatened.
All because she said pre-production of Dragon Age 2 that she doesn't like "fighting" and Dragon Age 2 didn't have a tonne of "fighting."
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
Well, it does and it doesn't. That shield can protect a developer who doesn't generally talk to the press, but lets the PR person or community manager be the face of the company.
In the case of Jennifer Hepler, (the Bioware writer) the abuse she's taken has gone on for a long, long time, and all of it over an interview she gave years ago that has since been both misquoted and quoted out of context. The truth is that women in the gaming industry are often targets of some pretty vile attacks by a certain, vocal contingent of gamers who just don't want girls in their clubhouse. (I myself have been attacked online just for saying that.)
It's an horrific state of affairs to know that the abuse she's been subjected to has gone one this long and, it seems, has only gotten worse. Threatening to murder her kids? Over some words? REALLY?
So yeah, having a spokesperson who knows what they're doing can save an Indy game maker a lot of headaches, and maybe even the whole game, but it's not magic. And it won't stop a dedicated bully (or pack of them) from going bonkers over some perceived slight and getting really, really ugly about it.
-Lisa Jont
That is a completely valid point. Just because a game dev can potentially be online and visible at all times, doesn't mean that anyone is entitled to their time/comments on demand.
-Lisa Jont