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Fez's dev to japanese developers: "your games just suck"
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Western game designers aren't as great as they pretend to be. I'm not sure what they've actually done to justify this attitude. The saddest thing is that some people sound like they are actively rooting for the Japanese game industry to not do well. It is so stupid, hoping for something that actually hurts them as gamers in the long run. I'm for good game design wherever you find it, in the east or west.
And why would you think that?
DangerousDave
Member
I could agree that most japanese developers hasn't been able to adapt well to the new generation. Even Inafune or Kojima stated this.
But this:
- Only apply to home consoles, not to portables (there are amazing games for portables for any japanese dev).
- Don't apply to Nintendo, that launched a lot of good games this generation (even if I'm not the best lover of Nintendo).
- There are still a lot of great japanese games in home consoles, very well adapted to this generation, with amazing results (Dead Rising, Dark Souls, Bayonetta, Vanquish, etc).
Is all too much complex to simplify it by "sorry, modern japanese games suck".
lol
Probably because people CHEERED at his comment? That's not a comment to fucking CHEER about.
Ahhh yes, Twitter, the ultimate sociopolitical revisionist tool. If you have to clarify something after the fact to have a completely different intent, you're doing something wrong. But it's my understanding that he didn't even manage to achieve that.
This is the best post of the thread.
Like he said on his twitter, this isn't about culture. It has nothing to do with it.
So I guess him clarifying he was only talking about modern Japanese games isn't good enough?
IrishNinja
Member
+1 - the PC thing is ignorant enough, this is just awful. the fact it got cheers is pretty despicable too - i'm also echoing the others saying ive no idea where he gets his self-importance from for not having an existing product. we gotta stop gassing d-bags like this up.
Why would it be? It's still a stupid classless answer.
reptilescorpio
Member
In this case no. It is a one man project that has been hyped because of the nature of the project. Same with Cave Story I found the game to be linked to the developer and what I knew of them.
Usually I try and ignore this kind of thing but more and more these days I find the external factors weighing on how I look at games.
mclaren777
Member
He's not wrong.
GT5 and TLG were the last great hopes for Japan. They might as well just give up on making software.
GT5 and TLG were the last great hopes for Japan. They might as well just give up on making software.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Wow, I kinda knew Fish came off as arrogant because a well known industry person (and fellow italian countryman) told me (and others) so.
[*I dunno if I'm allowed to say who he is since it wasn't a "public" statement, but I think he'll prolly tweet about it and in that case I'll report back and edit this post with his name and link to the tweet.]
I wouldn't expect any better from someone having that kind of attitude when talking to someone who's a million times more successfull than he is in this industry, but this last comment is pushing it and honestly makes me wanna to not give him money for FEZ, I guess I'll skip it now. Always hated "I'm soooo better than you" disrespectful douchebags, even worse since all of that is actually coming from a nobody.
[*I dunno if I'm allowed to say who he is since it wasn't a "public" statement, but I think he'll prolly tweet about it and in that case I'll report back and edit this post with his name and link to the tweet.]
I wouldn't expect any better from someone having that kind of attitude when talking to someone who's a million times more successfull than he is in this industry, but this last comment is pushing it and honestly makes me wanna to not give him money for FEZ, I guess I'll skip it now. Always hated "I'm soooo better than you" disrespectful douchebags, even worse since all of that is actually coming from a nobody.
Nice job generalizing the entire indie developers based on one douchebag.
Sigh... talk about ignorance...
DangerousDave
Member
Everyone here could list 50 amazing japanese games that has been launched in the last 5 years. GT5 and TLG isn't the whole industry.
Duane Cunningham
Member
Whatever. You can complain about Japanese games all you want, but Western devs have their major problems too, if we're talking broad generalizations.
Say what you will about the direction Final Fantasy has taken, even modern day Square would never force people to put up with the blatant consumer fraud that the lazy fucking criminals at Bethesda, Bioware and Obsidian think is totally hunky dory business practice.
Say what you will about the direction Final Fantasy has taken, even modern day Square would never force people to put up with the blatant consumer fraud that the lazy fucking criminals at Bethesda, Bioware and Obsidian think is totally hunky dory business practice.
Jive Turkey
Unconfirmed Member
Trying to outdo Fish today?
Glass Rebel
Member
Who would have thought that an incredibly ignorant comment would spark an onslaught of ignorant comments in this very thread?
Oh wait, everybody knew.
Fish is an idiot and the people in the crowd cheering are assholes too. I'm sure that poor Japanese guy is thrilled to tell about this back in Japan.
Oh wait, everybody knew.
Fish is an idiot and the people in the crowd cheering are assholes too. I'm sure that poor Japanese guy is thrilled to tell about this back in Japan.
Kenshin001
Member
Whether he is right or wrong is irrelevant. The way he spoke to the Japanese dev just seems way out of line, devoid of common human decency and I really hope he gets bitchslapped for it.
I also think Japanese games have mostly fallen behind but saying that I've just put over 100 hours into Dark Souls and will probably pick up Binary Domain as it seems fun. Been disappointed in a few Western games too and found some of the darling games of the indie scene boring as fuck, so I can't see why he is getting on his high horse.
Nihilistic Monk
Member
That's the problem. The generalisation of "indie developers". There's one thing to be said in having industry experience and deciding to then jump with your skills into a small platform ala Greg Kasavin/supergiant games.
From what I can google about Mr Fish, he sprang up in 2005 as part of a Canadian collective called Kokoromi which from the website just seems like a huge amount of film flam, and Fez, which is yet to be reviewed. Seems an awful lot of "thin tie" "thick frame glasses" "Scarf indoors", and not a lot of actual damn good game that people have actually sat down and played.
I think as enthusiasts we risk being dragged into a hype whirlpool by indie devs, as a throwback against the large publishers and big budget games just because they're the "little guy". It doesn't mean a free pass. It doesn't mean the game is automatically good, or that it should be treated with kid gloves.
I'll respect Mr Fish's opinion a lot more when I can actually sit down with a controller and see what he's throwing out. Until then? Nice Glasses. Nice thin tie.
I await to feel the fibre of your fabric.
/edit
Kokoromi has 11 pages of blog content. 10 stories per page. 36 stories written by Fish since 2006. The large majority are about Fez. Couple about gaming conventions. Couple about him DJ'ing. None of any substence.
That's the part I don't understand at all. Yes there are problems in the Japanese market, especially at the highest level, but it's not as if our biggest companies are churning out gaming gold time after time. There's plenty of really cool stuff in the Japanese market to enjoy. To lump all current Japanese games together and proclaim they suck is ignorance, period.
This is about as ignorant as generalizing Japanese games with GT5 and TLG and, duh, ignoring everything else in existence.
Glass Rebel
Member
The only good thing to come out of this thread. Haha.
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
All in all, I feel a little bit mudslinging from both sides is good for the industry. It gets them fired up to prove the other side is full of it.
I'm trying to find out what this dude has done besides sharing the name of Abe Vigoda's most beloved television character to justify his opinion having any value at all.
When I look at the trailer for his game all I see is Cave Story's art ripped off and some weird 2D/3D camera gimmick. Certainly this isn't it?
When I look at the trailer for his game all I see is Cave Story's art ripped off and some weird 2D/3D camera gimmick. Certainly this isn't it?
Quadraphonic
Member
In EVERY market there's quality if you look for it. Music, food, cars, mops, sandbags. His statement was that it's not the 90s anymore.
Bravo my dude. Bravo
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Not hating on the game personally, since I haven't played it.
I'm just not into supporting douchebags with my money.
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
It's not like we need his particular piece of entertainment to survive. We can decide for whatever reasons we like to not support the guy by skipping his title, even if it was on our radar before. Referring to his tactless ignorant outburst is reason enough for anyone with a bit of self-respect.
We generally need to be more respectful to each other. I for one am willing to put my money where my mouth is.
It's not like he's given us anything else to judge it on.
wolfmat said:
Also, this. Putting money in his pocket is rewarding his behavior, plain and simple.
I saw this coming with all this "Western vs. Eastern" games discussions and the way they are misconceived. I love a game, I don't care where it comes from. Fish is a misguided guy who will come to his senses as he grows up. I would like to believe that he has his head stuck up his a*s.
A kid who wants to be a game maker and looking up to an indie developer who believes that Japan is useless at making games... and that same kid will ignore Japanese games. That is a fail for the games industry.
I ask everyone to always love a game for it's quality as a game, as opposed to the hype behind it, because there are two ways to love something, one is to genuinely love something, and another is to love something for superficial reasons, i.e. hype, media, appearance, etc...
I am now not a FEZ customer unless he explains his criticisms coz he is entitled to an opinion, not labelling a culture coz let's face it, shit games come from everywhere.
A kid who wants to be a game maker and looking up to an indie developer who believes that Japan is useless at making games... and that same kid will ignore Japanese games. That is a fail for the games industry.
I ask everyone to always love a game for it's quality as a game, as opposed to the hype behind it, because there are two ways to love something, one is to genuinely love something, and another is to love something for superficial reasons, i.e. hype, media, appearance, etc...
I am now not a FEZ customer unless he explains his criticisms coz he is entitled to an opinion, not labelling a culture coz let's face it, shit games come from everywhere.
kyoya
Member
I'll just leave my words from the "other" opinion thread right here:
It's isn't the fact that they "suck"...it's the fact that the Japanese money to make them isn't there and isn't as widespread as it used to be in the cartridge days. If there is a shortage on games from Japan leading to a so-called paranoid shortage on quality, it's because we had our pick in the 8-16 bit days since big corporate money went into them - this is why.
In the 8-bit and 16-bit days, almost EVERY Japanese company had thier hand in the game development and publishing business, they in turn opened up office in the west, from Taxan (Japanese computer peripheral company), Toho (Japanese movie studio), JVC Musical Industries (Japanese electronics manufacturer/music label), Meldac (another Japanese music label), Seta (Japanese pachinko electronic company) to Electro Brain (an arm of Toei Animation studios), Data East (Japanese electronic component company) to Fuji TV (Japanese TV network). Every major Japanese company with money had their hand in the video game jar in hopes of making money, plus also having strict Japanese control of the end product. Well, that ended when more hardware competitors got into the scene and technology got expensive and the risks got higher.
People like Phil Fish interpret the loss of all these companies and all of this product as the END of the Japanese video game industry. That's bullshit. The money just ran out and the game designers just got older.
Why doesn't Konami make great games anymore? Because they prefer the financial safety of their fitness center and casino gambling equipment subsidiaries. They're going to put more money into that than games.
When Keiji Inafune said "Japan is finished", this was his personal anxiety and exhaustion speaking - he's NOT speaking for the entire Japanese video game industry. Inafune is a 47 year old man who is probably speaking more about himself, and his exhaustion with being at the same company (Capcom) for 23 years. The gaming press, consisting of those vetern 8-bit and 16-bit gamers in their late-twenties and early-thirties, took his quote and made a field day with it, (inserting upset that their cartridge playing days are over) and its readers did the same in a "sky is falling" manner.
Fast-forward to now, if you're a Japanese game developer and want your game published, you don't have to open up an office in the west, you just go to Aksys, Atlus, Xseed, or Sega to help you out. These companies have loyal customers and publish great games, but they're fighting for a piece of the market to get their titles in stores along with everyone else that have more "pull" with retailers, marketers, along with advertising power.
People (like Fish) are not upset that that Japanese games are bad, people are upset that their cartridge childhoods of coming home from school without a care in the world to play the enormous Japanese pick of 8-16 bit titles are sadly over. I'm missing those days too! The funding isn't there anymore, and the very creators that brought us the very innovative games from the 8-bit and 16-bit days have either retired from the game business, moved on to another line of work, or have sadly passed away. The Japanese investment bubble burst and no one wants to take risks anymore.
Japan has its game design schools just like every other country, I look forward to what their graduates have to offer. It isn't over yet, it never has been!
It's isn't the fact that they "suck"...it's the fact that the Japanese money to make them isn't there and isn't as widespread as it used to be in the cartridge days. If there is a shortage on games from Japan leading to a so-called paranoid shortage on quality, it's because we had our pick in the 8-16 bit days since big corporate money went into them - this is why.
In the 8-bit and 16-bit days, almost EVERY Japanese company had thier hand in the game development and publishing business, they in turn opened up office in the west, from Taxan (Japanese computer peripheral company), Toho (Japanese movie studio), JVC Musical Industries (Japanese electronics manufacturer/music label), Meldac (another Japanese music label), Seta (Japanese pachinko electronic company) to Electro Brain (an arm of Toei Animation studios), Data East (Japanese electronic component company) to Fuji TV (Japanese TV network). Every major Japanese company with money had their hand in the video game jar in hopes of making money, plus also having strict Japanese control of the end product. Well, that ended when more hardware competitors got into the scene and technology got expensive and the risks got higher.
People like Phil Fish interpret the loss of all these companies and all of this product as the END of the Japanese video game industry. That's bullshit. The money just ran out and the game designers just got older.
Why doesn't Konami make great games anymore? Because they prefer the financial safety of their fitness center and casino gambling equipment subsidiaries. They're going to put more money into that than games.
When Keiji Inafune said "Japan is finished", this was his personal anxiety and exhaustion speaking - he's NOT speaking for the entire Japanese video game industry. Inafune is a 47 year old man who is probably speaking more about himself, and his exhaustion with being at the same company (Capcom) for 23 years. The gaming press, consisting of those vetern 8-bit and 16-bit gamers in their late-twenties and early-thirties, took his quote and made a field day with it, (inserting upset that their cartridge playing days are over) and its readers did the same in a "sky is falling" manner.
Fast-forward to now, if you're a Japanese game developer and want your game published, you don't have to open up an office in the west, you just go to Aksys, Atlus, Xseed, or Sega to help you out. These companies have loyal customers and publish great games, but they're fighting for a piece of the market to get their titles in stores along with everyone else that have more "pull" with retailers, marketers, along with advertising power.
People (like Fish) are not upset that that Japanese games are bad, people are upset that their cartridge childhoods of coming home from school without a care in the world to play the enormous Japanese pick of 8-16 bit titles are sadly over. I'm missing those days too! The funding isn't there anymore, and the very creators that brought us the very innovative games from the 8-bit and 16-bit days have either retired from the game business, moved on to another line of work, or have sadly passed away. The Japanese investment bubble burst and no one wants to take risks anymore.
Japan has its game design schools just like every other country, I look forward to what their graduates have to offer. It isn't over yet, it never has been!
Jesus, the stupidity.
Phil Fish =/= Fez
Fez = pretty interesting game that Phil Fish, the apparent douche in question, has failed to get across to the public in a way that makes them understand what it really is.
Fez will probably be a very good game that will sell well.
Phil Fish is a guy that lives in a house alone.
Just because you don't like Phil Fish (which I get) doesn't devalue the work he put into Fez, and it doesn't take away the fact that Fez could be really good. Why you would not buy it because of a statement he made about Japanese developers which quite frankly is becoming truer and truer as as life goes on is preposterous.
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
His opinion is one thing. We get what he's trying to say. To a degree, I can't argue with the essence of it. This might also be my personal ignorance, I'm not denying that.
However, this guy humiliated a human being by putting down parts of his integral identity (nation, game-making) in a generally despicable fashion. At that point, the opinion fades in comparison to the awfulness of how he carried himself.
He obviously didn't give any thought on how violating his utterances are. Imagine being a Japanese indie dev half-way through your game, then jetting over to the US just to hear such a remark at GDC.
He didn't even give a shit about the more general issue of how Japanese people deal with shame. And this is no "shot-in-the-foot" talk here. That's a very real issue.
You can't let shit like that slide. It's just not right.
I don't care if Fez is good or not at this point. That fact that he could say that straight up to the guy in front of the panel audience means he won't get a dime out of me regardless of how much work he put into it.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Legend of Heroes: Trails In The Sky and Tales of Vesperia already prove Fez guy wrong.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
You wouldn't buy it because you don't want to monetarily support someone who you think is an idiot. The part where you seem to agree with his patently false claim makes me think you are similarly ignorant.
IrishNinja
Member
i like what you're going for here, but you're putting words in the mouth of a man who either couldn't or wouldn't articulate a point like that, because it was better to trash a japanese indie guy in front of a crowd.
when you put your face on a product, this is how things go. If jonathan blow had said some shit like "western games are all garbage except mine", perhaps you'd be making the same argument to not sleep on braid, but it's perfectly logical to vote with your dollar and not want to support a game made directly by the efforts of a dickbag. the only stupidity here is what he said and the way he's proudly standing by his ignorance on his twitter, like he's going to be someone in the industry 5 years from now, rather than a wiki footnote.
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
Who gives a fuck? I've got a pile of games that are really good. There are tons of games coming out that are really good. Not really seeing how you countered the point of "he's a shit, he won't get my money" here. It would have to be disproportionally good to turn me around.
Are you really telling me that it's more important to you to play good video games than to treat others with respect? What kind of a person are you?
You might want to clarify there. I don't want to twist words in your mouth. But that's what I'm reading.
So you would reward someone with your money so he can continue to make these statements to captive audiences? You would permit this man to have relevance?
I get why people think the claim was stupid. I get why it was mean-spirited. But not playing Fez for that reason alone is silly to me. Plenty of people have read Mein Kampf by Adolt Hitler even though he, you know, actually did something worth complaining about. And honestly, if you all think Phil Fish is so inconsequential, why are you all still talking about him?
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