King [s]Solomon[/s] Sterling I. Wisest of all Troll Kings.
My Monday has been made, now to go do something.

Forgot to say, but I liked Fez. It was somewhat interesting, but then I ran into a glitch/bug that messed up my playthrough.

I actually like it this way. No offense to the people thinking otherwise as that would also be a perfectly legit opinion.

I gotta say, I'm perplexed at how anyone can give the slightest fuck what kind of people are making their games (or movies or television shows or any other entertainment medium for that matter). Odds are very low that the average gamer will ever meet the people making their games. Those people do not want to be your friends. They aren't interested in connecting with you individually on a personal level. They will not be attending your next birthday party or wedding. They're simply making something, art or a product depending on how you want to look at it, for you to purchase and consume.

What they do, what they say, and how they behave in their lives is about as important to you as a gamer as what flavor Cheerios they prefer. I'm amazed this is even a debate, quite frankly.

It all comes down to personal choice. As a general rule, it would take a severe crime to stop me from separating art and artist, but everyone is different.

Also, some people are trying to bash the Fish dissenters by saying "it was only one opinionated statement about Japanese gaming". Well, it was more than that. It's stuff like this that makes people dislike Fish. For those of you who have only been following along in the past month (since Fez was back on the radar again), he's basically been doing stuff like this for years.

All he needs to do is keep his mouth shut and he'd sell more copies. It's a shame, because Fez is a great game.

i have no doubt most creators of the games i love are total assholes.
its only when they prove it with their own words in a public forum where it may have an affect on whether or not i want to support them.

i usually don't give much of a crap, because like i said, most people are totally unlikeable assholes....but in the case of this Fish guy, it pushed a button, and its preventing me from giving him money.

Sometimes, its as simple as that. Fuck his "art". I can live without it. He's a total proven pretentious douchebag, and he put himself out there in a really really stupid way.

armorgames.com/play/10899/sky-island

Now shut up about Fez.

I don't know why people think his view on Japanese games is so bad. There are so few fresh ideas coming out of Japan at the moment that I can't fault him for it.

Also how is it racist to not like something from another country. I fucking despise Indian food but I don't hate people from India. It's mind bogglingly stupid that someone would think that because a person doesn't like a particular item from another country that that means they hate everyone from that country.

I often feel like gamers will put up with anything, so I am not sure if the future where gamers are going to stop a company from crap business practices is ever going to come. I know some might argue that the recent ending kerfuffle with EA/Bioware, Mass Effect, and fans is evidence to the contrary. But in general, I think most gamers, particularity when it comes to the shitty business practices that I believe Jim is referencing, pretty much rollover and keep buying games. And so when it comes to something like "the developer is an ass/racist/homophobe/sexist/Nazi," it seems even less likely that gamers would choose not to buy.

Gamers are like the 10 cent prostitutes of the consumer market. They'll swallow anything.

I don't see what's so strange about not wanting to willingly give money to someone you don't like.

The thing is I have a limited amount of dosh and a seemingly unlimited amount of games I want. At the end of the day I am always searching for reasons to buy one game or buy another. Comments such as the one Chris pointed to are the very thing I factor in when deciding in some cases. It may be petty and it is definitely not fair to the whole developer for the comments of one person, but like I said, I can only afford so many games and somewhere along the line I have to split hairs. It sucks to do, but *sometimes* I feel it has to be done. Unfortunately for a game like Fez, this has a strong effect. I was admittedly only midly interested in Fez, but now it is off my radar for the foreseeable future why I focus on other games.

Well spoken, fair and balanced vid! I thank Allah for you and your spawn.

I don't care about devs. They get paid while working on the game by the company last time I checked. Though Indie devs do work differently I guess. Point is if we stopped doing anything because of one asshole we would probably be doing nothing.

I didnt know anything bout this fish fella. Generalizing something, like "japanese games suck" can be taken taken quite liberally.

I have not bought FEZ yet because I'm taking the Skyrim oath with FEZ. I will buy it when the bugs are fixed. Let me reiterate that, I will buy it, but I'm waiting a few weeks in hopes that there will be a patch released to make the game more enjoyable for me.

@Able to think
The problem people have with his statements is that he judged the quality of all "modern" Japanese games without any reasons to back it up. It also didn't help that he embarrassed the Japanese dev asking the question in front of a large group of people. Pretty shitty move if you ask me.

I also personally disagree that few fresh ideas are coming out of Japan. Didn't a completely different control scheme come from Japan in the form of the Wii? Deadly Premonition is one of the rare "so bas it's really good" games. Then you have Demons and Dark Souls with their notorious difficulty and oppressive atmospheres. And of course there's Catherine that combines block pushing puzzles with a love triangle storyline. How is that not a fresh game idea?

Despite the popular opinion that "JRPGS are dead/stale/whatever" there have been many that came out with cool ideas that don't fit what the supposed "stale" JRPG looks like. Radiant Historia took turn based battling and refined it while providing a great Chrono Trigger-like tale. Valkyria Chronicles had some great characterization with a WWII-esque setting. And then you have Xenoblade which I'm 25 hours in and they made MMO like battle systems fun which is tough to do.

I will say that not all is rosy in the development scene over there. I've read about some of the attitudes towards Western games, and unfortunately it needs a lot of improvement. Those attitudes originated from the time when Japanese game development were on top during the mid 80s and the West focused more on PC games after the crash. Since the Japanese didn't play many Western games other than Wizardry and Ultima, that is where the term "Western games are shit" came from.

So yeah, despite the issues that the development scene has over there, I don't believe that it's all doom and gloom over there like many western games bloggers have stated.

Also, on Fez itself. I do like my platformers, but with Super Meat Boy, Rayman Origins and Ms. Splosion Man still not completed, I can wait for a price drop on the game. I wasn't that interested to begin with. I might try the XBLA demo one day though.

I love it how people are calling Fish a racist and an idiot for speaking the truth. Some gamers and industry people are is such denial, that even though the truth has slapped them in the face with it's massive cock, they still can't seen to accept it.

And all of these people hating on Fish bring up exceptions and say "See, this one Japanese game was good!" Yeah, if you put a group of dying idiots together and tell them to make some good games, eventually one might be worth a buy. That DOESN'T mean their games are great...because they aren't...They suck.

The Japanese industry can't seem to move with the times. Either they continue making completely pretentious garbage that doesn't appeal to the west anymore, or they are trying to make shooters and can't seem to do it as well as a western developer can. They refuse to wake up and smell the noodles, and calling someone racist for saying so is like calling Will Smith racist because he punched a white dude in a movie once. It's absurd.

If they Japanese industry did have great games all the time, then why are they suffering so? If their games were great, selling well, innovating, and revolutionizing the industry, then why have they fallen to the bottom of the race? Face it, their industry is collapsing, and one good title every 6 months isn't going to save them.

I have no issue with the fact that some people will not buy Fez because they personally do not like Phil Fish. That said, how many of these people actually know Phil Fish?

There is a huge difference between disliking someone in real life and disliking someone based on their twitter feed and a few things they've said in interviews. If you've never spent time with Phil 1-to-1, then your limited information on him as a person shouldn't sway you either way when it comes to picking up his game.

This weird new world of ours has led people to believe that they truly know their facebook-only friends and twitter followers, but they don't. Just like you can't review a game you've only played for 10 minutes, you can't review a human being you only know on the internet.

If there is one thing that You Got Mail taught us is that who people are on the internet isn't always the same as who they are in real life.

Dear Jim Silver:

I ask you: What do you think about the humans?

Thanking you for attentiveness:
Zombie Orwell

The amusing thing is that people who react so righteously to things like this are being huge assholes themselves.

People act like he was making a poor argument about the state of modern japanese games (on which i disagree with his sentiment, but i doubt he fully agrees with his own words) but really it was just a one off statement.

I say crap like it all the time too that I know probably isnt fully true. All reggae music is horrible.

I honestly don't think his comment was in any way intended as racist tho I can see how some would take it that way. Still he really managed to make himself out to be one serious Dbag.

Really had no idea who this guy was or what game he was fiddling with. For me to have been made aware over such a negative PR point. With no plausible way it can be spun into a positive.......

all I can say is a real shame.

@Holmes: I don't know Phil Fish from Adam, But there's something to be said about the way a person presents himself to people on his facebook and his twitter feed. It doesn't matter if I know him or not, If he's telling people to choke on his dick, I can still think the guy is an asshole, Even in passing.

It's just like driving on the highway, Some dude cuts you off and races ahead almost causing an accident, You're just going to think `What an asshole.` in passing and go along with your day. It doesn't matter that you don't know him or what he was trying to do, he pulled a dick move and it colored your perception of him.

If that car that he was driving in had a business name on it's side, you might think to yourself `I'm never shopping there. That guy's an asshole.` Because his actions affected you and again, colored your perception of him AND his business.

It's all about the way that you present yourself to the public at large. If you talk like an asshole to the people around you, You can't expect me to have any other expectation when dealing with you, even if I don't know you.

"It's struck up some fascinating conversations about whether or not we should support art even if we don't like the artist, and whether someone being an "asshole" ought to factor into the purchase of a product."

Heres my problem, and my saying it comes at the expense of not being able to watch the video right now: I don't know this Phil Fish from the Barney Miller detective played by Abe Vigoda.

I don't know if I like him as a person, I don't know if I like him as an artist, I don't know if I even think I'd like his game. My problem is completely seated in the fact that theres this horrendous trend in gaming, specially indie gaming, that says "if your a completely unprofessional cock, you'll get written about and your game will get sales", basically: "theres no such thing as bad publicity".

So my issue rises from a lack of professionalism and the recent (within the last few years) flux in "extreme negativity as a business/marketing practice". Its just a personal line I draw, and it has much less to do with the person themselves as much as it is their conscious decision to present themselves that way to turn a buck.

But its like most things: You can like a person, or their work, but not agree with something they do or say, and you have to pick your battles. Fish could be a great guy, but so could John Wayne Gacy -doesn't mean we agree with what either of them did at the end of the day.

Goddamn do I hate all the people who come out with "Well he was right and you're in denial!" This is exactly why Fish's words provoked such a reaction. I don't want to play the same games you want to play. There are a lot more modern Japanese games I want to play than modern Western games, that's for sure, and that's just my taste. I'm not saying that modern Western games are bad, just that a lot of them tend to be not my sort of game at all. It pisses me off when people glibly celebrate the rather exaggerated "death" of the Japanese games industry. It seems a lot of gamers would like the style of games that people like me enjoy (already marginalized nowadays) to disappear entirely. I don't understand this attitude at all.

I REALLY enjoyed that... Thank you. =-)

(I confess I was a bit surprised that I didn't see Tim Schafer in there somewhere... or Notch. Both delightful guys and great game makers!)

There's a difference between saying 'I don't like modern Japanese games' and 'Japanese games are shit'. One is a matter of taste, the other is offensive to a lot of people and just generally being a dick. Fish crossed that boundary and showed that he had a big arrogant streak in doing so. His comment was deliberately provocative and his arrogance showed itself further after that. He may well be the nicest guy ever in real life but what else am I to base him on if not what he says in public? If that's the image he projects then that's the image I'm gonna see, as well as all the other people who follow gaming news.

It's different when Keiji Inafune does it because Inafune is a respected man in a lot of circles and has a lot of quality products to his name. He also provides reasons and constructive criticism on why he doesn't like modern Japanese games, and he doesn't act like an arrogant arse while doing so. Instead, he actually went and tried to sort things out by starting his own studio and taking a stand against his Capcom bosses - that's why even people who like Japanese games can respect Inafune's input. Phil Fish is the opposite - he made an insult for the sake of making an insult with (at the time) nothing to prove he was anything more than an obnoxious loudmouth. He's obviously a talented man but I still don't want to give my money to anyone like that, and thus I'm not buying Fez.

George Carlin once said of Michael Jackson that he was the best entertainer that ever lived, regardless of his personal life, and that we should just kick a few kids his way and let the man dance. Obviously, that's some pretty strong hyperbole, but that bit comes to mind with the whole "oh no Phil Fish is a jerk" thing.

If there's a game that's come out in the past five years that's made me think as hard as Fez has, or brought half as many smiles to my face (up until a bug ruined my 130% completion save file, anyway), I can't think of it. I don't agree with what he said about Japanese games, and I don't like his general attitude from what I've seen, but is it worth being self-righteous about this issue if it means I have to give Fez a miss?

If the cost of a game this good is that I have to give ten bucks to an unrepentant asshole, so be it. Short of, say, Holocaust denial, he can pretty much say whatever he wants if he'll just QA his games a little more.

I'm with frozenbabylon though it really depends on what was said. However if their negative personal agenda bleeds into their work (which it sometimes does) then it's hard to ignore. I don't think this is the case with Phil Fish and FEZ though, atleast for me.

Lol, I just watched 30 seconds of a hair dye commercial for women....they are so wasting their advertising dollars on this target audience!

Decent arguement and I did not know that about the Dev. I still wish Fez was on the PSN as I do want to try it. People that complain about this probably own iPhones.....just saying.

Damn that picture is huge.

I also meant the iPhone comment as in being hypocrites not that iPhone people complain :P

People have to get a grip on how they see things. It's looking more and more that people can't understand what a person really means. Keiji Inafune has been touting this months, so much he left Capcom because he felt their games weren't as good and doesn't seem to get better any time soon. He has been very vocal about how Japanese game development is on a down curve. It's a knee jerk reaction from people who are insecure about their on stance on race..

Phil Fish stated his opinion, something that the internet for some reason love to defend for themselves but not for others. This almost hive like mentality everyone should react rather than reason and understand the situation in it's entirety. It's childish and condescending.

Whether you agree with his opinion or not is up to you but calling him a racist isn't an opinion; it's a lie as result of that person's own insecurities about how you may be looked at if you by chance happen to share his opinion.

Fez isn't a game that has ever interested me so it's not like I'm not buying it out of spite. However, people should really be careful in terms of fucking with someone livelihood just for having a "shitty" opinion, one day that may just come around bite you on the ass. Then next you kno, everyone will be too scared to say anything for fear of losing their job, friends, family and other assorted goodies..

I don't mind supporting an asshole with a tendency to make broad, sweeping generalizations about segments of the videogame industry. If Fez is great, and by all accounts it is, I'll pick it up.

I'll, unfortunately, never buy another Earthworm Jim game or any other product from creators like TenNaple ot Card. Those guys are on a whole other level.

Yeah, I won't support a game if the creator is a mega douche. A little ego is okay, but when it's gigantic I'm a no go. Ever since I found out about the EarthWorm Jim guy I could care less about his games.

That being said I don't get think Fish saying Japanese games suck means he's racist. He phrased the answer like an A-hole, but it doesn't make him a racist. Not liking Japanese games doesn't make you racist in the same way that enjoying Taco's doesn't make you not racist. Racism is how you react to the people not necessarily what they make.

Another great episode. The last few episodes have been better than average in my opinion.

Bla bla release fez on steam bla bla

While I can understand those who feel compelled to avoid this game due to Fish's statements, it just strikes me as incredibly arbitrary given how many other artists and entertainers out there say (and do) things much worse.

Let's be honest: This wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal if Fez had launched on multiple platforms.

The Phil Fish controversy has been stoked largely by the flames of fanboyism. Many of the righteous boycotters simply don't have the option to play the game on their preferred platform, and have latched onto the anti-Fish cause in an attempt to convince themselves that the game doesn't deserve their attention anyway.

Obviously, that doesn't go for everyone, but you're naive if you think it's not a big part of this whole overblown affair.

I don't agree with his comments, but he himself keeps me from buying his game by making it impossible to purchase.
I don't think what he said was racist, but it definitely is very rude to just flat out say something sucks.

In the end of the day, it doesn't really matter since very few people will be swayed by their decision if they knew about this game while it was in development. The publicity likely wouldn't have affected many in deciding whether to buy his game or not.

Jim, you don't have to BUY the Neverhood, but you should GET it. For the love of god ACQUIRE the Neverhood. It doesn;t have any PIRATEs in it and it has been out of print for years, so if you were to TORRENT

Jim, you don't have to BUY the Neverhood, but you should GET it. For the love of god ACQUIRE the Neverhood. It doesn;t have any PIRATEs in it and it has been out of print for years, so if you were to TORRENT

In clarifying my earlier statement. I do not think I actually know Fish, nor do I think he is necessarily racist or an asshole. The problem is there are just soooooo many good games out. With soooooo many that interest me. And like I said I often have to split hairs to decide which game to buy. Will I NEVER buy Fez because of Fish's comments? Of course not, I will probably buy it some day, but his comment definitely does not help make his game a purchase soon.

I miss the shades.

To be honest, he only has himself to blame for any hardships he may be facing. I'm not going to give any reasoning or explanation, should be pretty obvious anyways. Also, I'd be will to try out FEZ, if it wasn't just for XBL.

Bought Fez immediately and I love it. Fish? I don't know the man personally, and I won't pretend I do. People love to cast judgment on a person because of a few quotable comments. I'm not that ignorant, or am I that close-minded.

The irony surrounding this whole thing is astonishing.

of course because western games are so varied, with shooter after fucking shooter. And the art of western games is so beautiful with dog shit brown and gun metal gray, the only colors they ever use.

Supporting art over artists is a sentiment I can dig.

However I refuse to support any art that has had the misfortune of being nabbed up by the big bad EA plantation owners.

How are 'Japanese games stale' when the US releases about four dozen cookie-cutter FPS games a year?

Also, EKGProd: "wake up and smell the noodles" in an argument about not being racist.

You are definitely right about one person not creating a game, but when that one person is appointed to speak about it, it becomes hard to separate them from the title.

@EKGProd

lol what an idiot. seriously what did western gaming "innovated" this gen??

all they did was made the graphics prettier and made it more cinematic.

seriously i don't know what western gaming has done to outshadow the landmarks that the japanese games have place OVER the years.

that's the problem, you introduced soo much that to the point you will run out of ideas.

it's funny how you criticize japanese games and yet western games are just as guilty if not worst.

in fact western games are actually more stale nowadays with all the gun blazing redneck and shit.

sure there are a "few" games that stand out but just like japan there's alot of mediocre-garbage games in both sides.

the difference however is that the japanese always try something new even if it fails in the long run. unlike western gaming which you see tons of FPS and very few genre games stand out.

@Holmes: I agree with you, and as I stated earlier I had zero qualms about purchasing Fez. But the flip side of what you said about 'knowing' people through Twitter and Facebook is also true: we live in an era where vast multitudes of people can not only know who we are, but the extent of that knowledge will be limited to what they see of us on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

If a thousand people are going to know me chiefly by what I put on Twitter, do I really want to put the same sorts of things on Twitter that Fish did? If I do that, I may not be guilty of being an asshole in real life, but I am guilty of poor judgement. Especially if my livelihood is tied to the reception of a product that has my name strongly associated with it.

Again, I still bought Fez, and I don't regret it. But if internet people think Phil Fish is a huge jerk (whether or not they are correct), it's because that's the image Fish projected on Twitter and at public appearances.

"I'm like King Solomon, only much, much wider." ;)