Farewell Phil. We'll miss you.

How can you hate a person who created something so awesome?

So that's it then. The trolls have won. Phil Fish has cancelled Fez II and is leaving the industry. All because of a sustained campaign of hate by a vocal minority who for some unknown reason, see fit to call themselves 'gamers'. Why do we allow the worst of our community to have the loudest voices and ruin it for the rest of us? Not only that, why do we allow these people to perpetuate the negative stereotypes of people who would rather partake of something interactive for a couple of hours after work rather than switch off their brains and watch gloom and doom soap operas all night?

I love Fez. It's one of my favourite games of this generation. No title that I have played in the last five years has given me such a wide eyed sense of discovery with every new screen or been as full of genuine whimsy as Fez. Nor has any other game had such a unique central mechanic. I was excited to see where Polytron would take the sequel. I was excited about the prospect of new worlds, new discoveries and evolved play mechanics. Now, thanks to a few self righteous asshats, I'll never have the chance.

Sure, Phil Fish was abrasive. But personally I found him entertaining. He's brusque, forthright, and unfiltered, and he was, up until last night at least, perfectly happy to stand up to his detractors. If you don't like that, then so what? Stay away from his Twitter feed. It's not difficult. I was bought up to just not associate myself with people I don't like, not persistently hound someone anonymously over the internet until you force them to stop doing something they love just so they can escape the constant abuse. We had a word for that at school. Bullying. And just because you're not in school anymore, it doesn't mean the description doesn't apply.

Depending on your perspective, Trolls live under bridges and eat goats, or they're a species made of rock who get a bit thick when it gets hot because their brains are made of silicon. They don't fill the internet with anonymous hate. It's time we stopped associating self righteous, hate filled, abusive assholes with fictional creatures and started calling them what they really are. Bullies.

They're winning and we shouldn't be allowing them to. And now they've forced one of the few genuine innovators out of the games industry because they've taken umbrage over his personality. So here's what I have to say to them.

Thanks for killing a potentially great game. I hope you're real fucking proud of yourselves, wankstains.

In appreciation of: Phil Fish

Phil Fish seems to be getting a lot of hate at the moment. This was bought to my attention when I spotted a tweet from CliffyB highlighting the fact. For those who don't know the story, here's how it goes.

It seems that Fish has an entourage of haters, a bunch of people who take pleasure in criticism and say stuff about boycotting Fez because they think he's an asshole. To which Phil Fish replied this, "Fez is number one on Steam right now and it's not even out yet. You should boycott harder, nerds." So, giving as good as he gets then. Needless to say there was a bit of forum rage, and people started calling for a boycott again. Frankly the forum trolls need to grow up. Phil Fish is not Activision or EA, two companies whom you have every right to hate. No, he's just a guy, a guy who made a game whom some corners of the internet seem to have a problem with, a guy who isn't a PR mouthpiece. So what if he comes across as a prickly auteur? It's his game, he has every right to be. He's speaking to the trolls in their own language. Of course they're not going to like it.

Phil Fish, however prickly or unpleasant a person he may or may not be, is a personality, and one who can speak like a human rather than a PR robot at that. Gaming needs more personalities. Excluding Phil Fish, I can count the amount of big gaming Names I can reel off from the top of my head on one hand. Miyamoto, Kojima, Cliffy B, Jon Blow, Rhianna Pratchett. So he's a pantomime villain to the trolls? So what? He's an indie dev so he can speak his mind without having to worry what the suits think, and it's fun to watch him spar with his critics. I'd like to see more people like him. Also whatever his personality flaws, Fez is a truly great game, and to stop yourself from playing it, just because you don't like the developer is simply cutting off your nose to spite your face.

To put it another way. Did you boycott Django Unchained after seeing Quentin Tarantino's now famous Channel 4 interview with Krishnan Guru Murthy? Thought not. It doesn't matter if he's a bit of a dick, the fact is Tarantino's movies are great, so you go and see them anyway. The same applies to Clint Eastwood movies, or any number of musicians. Of course, you have to draw the line somewhere. It's not ok to like Roman Polanski movies or the Lostprophets. Save the boycotts for the real assholes, not for the guy who just said something that you've taken umbrage with.

Now stop trolling and go play Fez. You'll thank yourself for it.