Good heavens, what have we here?

[World's Greatest Hamburger]

http://techraptor.net/content/relationships-indie-gaming-interview-allistair-pinsof-part-2

One of the more interesting things I heard was a notable indie developer tell me that Phil Fish significantly stole from their code, projects and ideas to create Fez. When I questioned why they won’t sue, they said they were in fear of being ostracized by the IGF, media, and indie dev scene.
So, this developer Shawn McGrath approached me when Indie Game: The Movie came out and featured credits that libeled his friend Jason Degroot. Both of these guys were extremely influential on Fez; there’s a good argument that it’s their game. McGrath created the central mechanic, design, and code which was lifted from an earlier project he made with Fish that was a music game. Fish admitted to this as far back as 2007, but he’d say “the whole game is made around the 3D pixel aesthetic” or “it’s all designed around my Miyazaki influence”. This was dishonest however because it was really designed around McGrath’s mechanic.
The thing the public never knew – that McGrath and Degroot held for leverage should the filmmakers & Fish not change the credits – is that McGrath worked on Fez until the GDC trailer put out in October 2007, according to McGrath. At this point, McGrath had a second falling out and this time it was serious. McGrath told him they were done and Fish agreed to cancel the project. The agreement was that McGrath would take his original design (2D/3D rotating mechanic) and Fish would take his Trixel engine, according to McGrath. When McGrath saw the game appear at IGF 2008, he was furious and felt backstabbed.
I think Fish is a talented visual designer and Fez carries his unique stamp on it, but the problem — and this is according to McGrath — remains that two of its biggest creators were snubbed out of its development, uncredited, unpaid, stolen from, and lied to. What makes this an industry wide problem is that the two were afraid to speak out because of Fish’s connections. Fish was friends with Boyer who ran the IGF, Fish was a social butterfly who knew a lot of gaming press (there were multiple videos of him casually hanging out with 1UP staff back on their video site in 2008) and had high level connections at Microsoft. Degroot & McGrath feared Fish would use his connections to ruin their career right as they were to debut their successful indie title Dyad.

[udienowplz]

I feel really ashamed for buying this game and respecting Phil Fish. This better be looked into.

[Pax]

Damn... I really liked FEZ, now i know why the 2D/3D rotating mechanic isnt used pretty well in the puzzles of the game... Also that might be the reason why he cancelled FEZ 2....

[InvisibleJim]

Turns out he might have stolen the code for the game and the coder was too afraid of his connections to sue. Fishy business indeed!

[Roler42]

I don't really regret buying this game, however, I don't mind that mr Fish isn't making anymore games either :P

I said before, this industry needs less of Phil Fish, and more Ed McMillens, more devs that make games while keeping it gaming, instead of divas like mr Fish

[Cocyx The Gay Skeleton]

hi gamergate. you're still really funny and will believe things like a biased opinion on IGF from a guy who admitted to having a personal falling out with the main IGF dude. on a gamergate clickbait site. although you justified a bad breakup to conspire against zoe quinn so i guess that plays into the emotions > facts thing

https://twitter.com/DyadGame/status/563195165498941440

mcgrath didnt even really care and the stolen "code" was just recreated by renaud after phil agreed to take the trixel engine. there's no copyright on the 2d to 3d perspective thing, this has been in games for a while, lol.

[Stry8993]

Originally posted by shuffleʀᴜsʜ͇͇͇͇:

hi gamergate. you're still really funny and will believe things like a biased opinion on IGF from a guy who admitted to having a personal falling out with the main IGF dude. on a gamergate clickbait site. although you justified a bad breakup to conspire against zoe quinn so i guess that plays into the emotions > facts thing

https://twitter.com/DyadGame/status/563195165498941440

mcgrath didnt even really care and the stolen "code" was just recreated by renaud after phil agreed to take the trixel engine. there's no copyright on the 2d to 3d perspective thing, this has been in games for a while, lol.

Steam Level 0? Private Profile? I'll take the "gamergate clickbait", thanks. Seems to have a bit more integrity.

[Cocyx The Gay Skeleton]

Originally posted by Stry8993:

Steam Level 0? Private Profile? I'll take the "gamergate clickbait", thanks. Seems to have a bit more integrity. :pleased:

if i was gabe newell you would do the same thing cause its a psychological necessity for u

[Cocyx The Gay Skeleton]

http://kotaku.com/gamergates-latest-conspiracy-theory-doesnt-hold-up-1684012308

so your conspiracy got completely destroyed. but on the bright side you somehow made kotaku do pretty decent journalism lol

"So you guys never agreed that Fish would not work on [Fez] anymore?" I asked.

"No, no, that was never even talked about," McGrath said. "I don't know where that came from. Maybe I said that in the original interview I did with Allistair? I highly doubt I would do that though… No, that never happened. What happened was what I said: we were working on something, it wasn't called Fez, there was no concept of Gomez, what he even looked like, any of the hat stuff, there was none of that. None of that existed; there was no Fez. It didn't even have a name... we didn't even have a name for it."

looking forward to the next ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane theory in a few weeks. keep it up, it's making gg look dumber than ever

[World's Greatest Hamburger]

You've proven that the project they worked on was not originally called Fez, nor did it feature any character with a Fez hat. Great jorb, hamstray. Now come back when the parts about stealing code, extorting from the coders, gagging them with the threat of blacklisting and having a friend on the IGF panel to help Fish win $30,000 stop being true.


But no, those gobbledygoobers are just being paranoid, aren't they?

[Cocyx The Gay Skeleton]

Originally posted by World's Greatest Hamburger:

You've proven that the project they worked on was not originally called Fez, nor did it feature any character with a Fez hat. Great jorb, hamstray. Now come back when the parts about stealing code, extorting from the coders, gagging them with the threat of blacklisting and having a friend on the IGF panel to help Fish win $30,000 stop being true.

did you read the article i linked or would you have a panic attack clicking a kotaku link and giving them like 2 cents of possible ad revenue lol

you realize pinsof himself withdrew the claim that fish stole mcgraths code right. do you have any connection to reality at all

https://twitter.com/megaspacepanda/status/563346151328321537 <== thats pinsof

https://twitter.com/DyadGame/status/563195165498941440 <== that ones mcgrath

https://twitter.com/DyadGame/status/563437390468239362 <== BONUS: mcgrath mocking you

Originally posted by World's Greatest Hamburger:

But no, those gobbledygoobers are just being paranoid, aren't they?

nah, probably more mentally ill than anything. but continue trying to debate your way out of this one though, it's pretty funny. what thread of logic will he try to cling to next

[World's Greatest Hamburger]

"2. Fish didn't steal any code. He took McGarth's game that Fish worked on and duplicated it, modifying in process, called it Fez."

Oh okay, so he copy/pasted the game engine McGarth wrote and built everything else off of that, without crediting McGarth or allowing him any of the profits. Yeah, that's not stealing at all.

[Cocyx The Gay Skeleton]

Originally posted by World's Greatest Hamburger:

Oh okay, so he copy/pasted the game engine McGarth wrote and built everything else off of that, without crediting McGarth or allowing him any of the profits. Yeah, that's not stealing at all.

yeah he copy pasted it, cause that's what rebuilding a 2d/3d mechanic from scratch is like. i mean half-life basically copy pasted quake right? lol

oh wait i thought he ripped off paper mario though. no wait he ripped off crush! or the other dozens of games that have this exact mechanic, cause fez is exactly like them. i know what im talking about, im a gamer, i use game as a verb. watch out