Phil Fish and an Example We Haven't Seen the Last Of
Phil Fish, creator of indie hit Fez, has displayed a very public personal meltdown. The link briefly describes an exchange between Fish and Gametrailers video host Marcus Beer shortly after Beer named Fish and other indie developers "fucking hipsters." The Twitter-oriented interactions that followed climaxed with Fish writing "I'm done. Fez 2 is canceled. Goodbye."
There are any number of ways to look at this situation. Professionally speaking, the public nature of this debacle makes it an embarrassment for Fish and Gametrailers alike. This is not how paid experts are meant to interact and display themselves in front of loyal fanbases, and the grounds of game development and game journalism are worse for it.
If that sounds judgmental, it probably is. But I perceive it as a fact of the situation. I won't speak for Beer's side, as the state of gaming journalism is a different web than I want to crawl into. But for Fish, I can relate and empathize with his situation (albeit on a much smaller scale). Fish claims to be harassed by internet trolls at an all-too-common frequency, which I have no problem believing, and Marcus Beer represents a large media outlet jumping on the personal attack rampage. He's not the first of his kind to do so.
Indie development is constantly rising and presenting its own superstars. But these aren't corporate-nurtured idols; rather, the likes of Phil Fish and Jonathan Blow and Edmund McMillen are totally ordinary individuals, to a fault. The highs and lows of videogame enthusiasm are centered on their respective products, and the forces of fandom generally reserved for gigantic, faceless corporations are instead being hyper-magnified onto these unassuming newcomers.
Remember the nightmarish launch of Electonic Arts' Sim City on PC earlier this year? Player and media backlash was immense, but because of the structure and presentation of a megacorp like EA most of us felt like our cries were simply being brushed off. Who do you blame for that? The programming team? QA? The CEO and his top management? The backlash becomes a shotgun blast over the distance, spread out, weakened. Now, imagine if all of that blowback surrounded a game developed by one or two people. We know both their names, both their Twitters, both of their home addresses. Respect that distinction, and the situation of indie developers like Fish becomes wholly intimidating, almost terrifying.
Forunately, nothing of such a monumental scale has yet afflicted an indie developer. Yet the inherently more personal nature of their interactions with fans creates problems of a relatively large scale. How can these indies be expected to properly maneuver attacks that become more invasive as fans learn more personal information? Some indies, by forces of will I can't begin to understand, handle the attention in stride. Fish and others have displayed hostile reactions I cannot advocate, but also can't condemn for being human and vulnerable against forces louder and bigger than themselves.
At a younger age, I was faced with online hostility from probably no more than twelve members of an internet forum. Forum posts, AIM messages, the like. All of it was only text on a wall, and at any time I could have simply signed off and gone about my time with other matters. I didn't, somehow couldn't bring myself to, and I found the experience crushing. That's from twelve people.
I am hesitant to speak of Fish's appearance in Indie Game: The Movie, which documented some of the trials he and other developers faced in pushing their games out into the world. Fish has expressed displeasure with his representation in the film and the way viewers have approached him after the fact behaving, he perceives, as though they now understood him on a personal level. I won't say I understand him, but the weight of game development on its own, before fan positivity or negativity had a value in it, has a visible impact on Fish during the filming. If nothing else, it is plain to see that game creation is a very stressful and perfectionist endeavor for Fish, and I wonder what can be fairly expected of a developer when he must also triumph over those who would put him down for it.
The personal attacks and overblown reactions we witnessed between Fish and Beer are indeed lessening the value and dignity of an already troubled videogame industry. The faces of videogame development's future have to be better. But I'm at a loss as to how that gets accomplished without making indies as cold and distant as the corporate developers they mean to counter.
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