8 Times Video Game Developers Publicly Insulted Their Players

3. Phil Fish's Colourful Response To Fez PC Players

Fez Phil Fish
Polytron

Puzzle-platformer Fez is one of the best indie games of the decade, but its cute exterior is hiding a gruelling development cycle, several delays, and an outspoken creator in lead designer Phil Fish.

The game first released on Xbox 360 as a timed exclusive, before hitting Steam a year later. At this stage, the game was discounted by $1 (it went from $10 to $9), which, for some reason, resulted in a lot of PC players expressing their disappointment at the fact that it was only a 10% saving.

This rubbed Fish the wrong way, and on Twitter, he hit back, saying that "if 9$ really is too much for you then please, do me a favour, just steal it and shut the f*** up about it." He then cheekily said that he was going to change the game's Steam price to $90, a comment that only poured more petrol on the fire.

Of course, he didn't change the price to $90 because that would be ridiculous, but his initial response urging people to pirate the game is just bizarre. This wasn't the first time he insulted his fans, either: in 2012, he asserted that "gamers are the worst f***ing people", in response to fans telling him that they planned to pirate Fez.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!