Fish, Beer, Vonderhaar and Thanks

By now, you’ve probably heard that Phil Fish has discontinued development on Fez 2 and is leaving games development. You’ll know that the announcement followed a tirade on Twitter against video presenter Marcus Beer, who had published a video calling Fish a wanker, and less savoury names.

Fish has clarified on Twitter that he isn’t leaving games development as a result of Beer’s actions. Rather, it was the sum total of the abuse he receives daily, “the end of a long, bloody campaign” as he put it on his company’s website.

The games community has a problem.

In 2011, I posted about indie game developer Courtney Stanton who, after revealing that a previous rape has left her with concerns over going to a games convention, was subjected to hundreds of messages hoping that she gets raped again.

This behaviour isn’t going away. You may have already seen Gamer Fury, a tumblr collecting tweets to Treyarch Studio Design Director David Vondehaar, in response to a rebalancing patch. One of the milder responses goes “I want my fucking Snipers back! If you don’t give back I’ll find you, and I’ll kill your family!”

How charming. I can’t imagine what it’s like to put your heart and soul and years of your life into a product, to get this in return.

Mostly, I’m writing this because want to thank each and every one of you who reads this site. Our little corner of the internet doesn’t get kind of crap and that’s entirely thanks to you, our readers. I know there are thousands of you coming every month and I love that none of you are the kind of people who leave abusive comments.

You guys are awesome.