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Former Gears of War frontman Cliff Bleszinski has published an open letter to Fez creator Phil Fish asking him to return to the games industry.
The letter follows Fish’s decision to take a break from the industry as a result of ongoing abuse.
“Never underestimate the intestinal fortitude of the anonymous loser hiding behind a monitor and his or her ability to sling vitriol at someone who willingly puts themselves out there,” wrote Bleszinski. “The fact of the matter, Phil, is that you were trending worldwide on Twitter. How many game developers can say that? Does no one realise that while you may seem somewhat unstable at times you also have Andy Kaufman as your Twitter AVI? (Kids, google Andy, and suddenly Phil might just make more sense to you. Or watch ‘Man On The Moon.’)
“Never forget that the internet can be a fantastic thing, but it can also be fantastically dumb. Reddit is a wonderful community for finding out funny memes or random facts until they falsely accuse someone of being the Boston Bomber or go out of their way to protect the r/creepshots loser. And never forget that the Internet can be one big game of telephone amplified by anonymous myopic monkeys jamming on keyboards who are so angry about their meatball sandwich.
“(How do you think I feel when my wife reads a tweet to her that says “come sit on my face” or “you are a bitch”?)”
He continued: “Someone on Twitter asked me how to deal with haters. I have some experience on the subject for well over 20 years now. Blow says you can’t ignore it because by the time you’ve read the words it’s too late. The key with the idiots is to outwit them because the idiot uses hate (and poor spelling/grammar) because the idiot does not know how to be witty. Watch what people like Ricky Gervais and Patton Oswalt do on Twitter. Heck, like him or not, even Piers Morgan is pretty good at fending them off.
“Every idiot that you outwit wins you five times the fans and that much more respect.
“The other key is to absorb all of that hate into one big fireball of motivation inside of your belly and then pour all of that energy into your work until you can unleash one big giant motherf*****g HADOKEN upon the community that wins awards and sells millions and then the haters will truly be eating a giant bushel of dicks as you roll in a pile of money, acclaim, and community love.”
Bleszinski concluded that Fish owes a great game to his fans and the industry needs more people like him.
“You don’t owe a damned thing to any gaming journalist. We’ve seen the rise of many ‘Rush Limbaughs’ in the gaming industry, people who do videos or podcasts digging a finger into an open wound that gets the gaming community going because, hits. You DO owe a great product to your community, something I hope you’ll resume doing some time in the near future. The industry needs people like you to speak with their hearts before their brains because I’m tired of hearing the PR approved appropriate response. I’m tired of games that feel like they’ve been developed by focus groups or clueless executives going ‘Hey that Call of Duty is big, we need one of those!’
“Besides, at the end of the day, that cycle of community feedback and crafting that big fireball is entirely too addictive.
“Come back, Phil. We miss you already. Maybe I’ll be right behind you, returning with Adamantium skin.”
Fez 2 remains in limbo and will do so unless Fish makes a U-turn on his decision to quit games.
Source: Clifford Unchained
