2012 IGF Award Winners

By: Paul Eres

On: March 8th, 2012

The IGF Winners were announced yesterday; you can watch a video of the announcements above.

Grand Prize: Fez
Design: Spelunky
Nuovo: Storyteller
Technical: Antichamber
Visuals: Dear Esther
Audio: Botanicula
Student: Way
Mobile: Beat Sneak Bandit
Audience: Frozen Synapse
XBLA Award: Super Time Force

Posted in Community, Developers, IGF / GDC

John

You might be right, the word douchebag has been used to describe people who behave that way and I think it fits the behavior, but I don’t think people normally behave this way unless they’re suffering from some sort of mental stress, depression, or are having personal problems which others just don’t know about. People just don’t behave like that unless there is a problem, or perhaps they are extremely desperate for attention. I don’t know, but maybe I’m just being hopeful that this isn’t how people normally behave these days.

But if I’m wrong, then I admit I’m wrong… as much as I don’t like being wrong. :)
Nobody2

Some people get the short of the end of the stick. Phil Fish puts himself in bad situations despite having some of the best opportunities. No risk government loans, indie funding, award money, tons of pr, press, a film, xbla contract, and support from a well solidified group of indies/media. The xbla contract is actually horrible, but there’s pretty much guaranteed payback and millions of dollars if he just finishes the game.

He’s been handed this all on a plate for his taking, even though the Fez concept isn’t even his to begin with. There are plenty of indies and literally AA studios out there who have done much more with absolutely nothing. Phil Fish would be well loved if he just stop being a jerk and start humbling himself, instead of acting like a victim or prima donna all the time.
Mouwpee

100% of the people bashing Phil Fish are not Phil Fish and don’t know what’s going through his head or what the root of his attitude is. Unless someone knows the FULL story of what he’s thinking and how it affects what he’s saying and how he’s acting, I don’t think it’s very fair to make such comments against him, judging his actions before having his reasons for his actions.

In the music industry, there’s a lot of egotistical assholes out there in and a lot of people with major issues, but you still listen and you still enjoy the music. What’s happened happened and I don’t see why we can’t accept the same for games too.
Nobody2

We all have “reasons” for doing things, but expect your actions to have consequences. He’s never learned, because people like you keep excusing his actions. Having “reasons” does not give you a free card to act like a jerk continually. Again, this guy has been given opportunity after opportunity, yet has never learned from it, because he thinks that he deserves the world, and turns anything bad into a sob story.
Anonymous

it’s “Vogel” with an “e” btw (just pointing it out because reading it with a “u” is kind of annoying)

and your point of view is understandable, but i think it’s incomplete, since basically you are telling the internet not to act like the internet. it’s the internet, people are going to anonymously comment on things. you can’t stop youtube comments from being stupid youtube comments, for example

so it may not accomplish anything to bash phil fish, but it also doesn’t accomplish anything to tell people not to bash phil fish
John

True enough. I agree with you there. Oh and thanks for catching my mistake. I type fast and fail to catch them myself when commenting.

Honestly though, I don’t have a problem with having an opinion either way, and being critical or scrutinizing isn’t a bad thing… Negativity seems to expand rather rapidly.

I like your comment about YouTube though. Even though it seems to me that there are endless amounts of mindless fools out there who will leave “stupid youtube comments”, it wouldn’t be Youtube without those people or those comments… I can’t help but feel that without all of the hateful, racist, and negative comments at a site like Youtube that it would actually make the site a better place, but then you have dickweeds doing stupid things and recording it and then showing it off to the world, which is also a part of Youtube… in the end does it matter? I hope there are as many simple, interesting, good, and inspiring videos out there. I just wonder if there really are. To this day I still don’t understand why adults post videos of their children and then allow the general public to leave comments. I understand that they shouldn’t have to worry about that sort of thing, but realistically, they’re at fault because they’re just asking for someone (some dickhead) to leave a nasty remark about someone close to them.

Kind of a catch 22 in all human behavior I guess.
Guess-t

Thanks
Russ

People, including me, dislike Phil Fish not because we are jealous of his success. And its not because we don’t think he hasn’t worked hard. It’s purely because in many cases he has been lucky and he seems to do everything he can to act like a spoiled brat.
I haven’t met him in person, and it could be the case that he’s a nice person in real life – but this is hardly an excuse for him to act like an obnoxious jerk online.
Even if Fez turns out to be a good game, I would feel bad about gratifying someone like that. Yes I’m aware thats immature of me, but I simply don’t want to give a creator like that any of my encouragement or support.

There are plenty of successful devs that manage to be tactful and likeable.

Likewise depression, being bipolar or “Aspergers” are NOT excuses to act like an asshole to other people. If you put yourself in some kind of public arena, you should expect to see consequences for your behaviour. Act nice and people will like you. Act like a bratty asshole and people will dislike you.
Ffff

Well no fez for me then :). I am not going to give money to this punk.(sorry about the other people in his team, you guys should find another partner to work for).
http://wilbefast.com/ Wilbefast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCUsPnKD1gk
Likers Gonna Like

1. phil fish doesn’t have any games i could enjoy. if he had already released a game good enough to warrant his attitude people would be a bit more lenient. its the combination of not really having done anything of note and acting like youre some sort of genius that gets the “haters” riled up

2. im sorry but game developers acting like “rockstars” is embarrassing. it was embarrassing when john romero did it in the 90s and its embarrassing when phil fish does it in 2012.
Nurgle

that tweet was a reply to a dude saying ”
Oh, it’s just about some arrogant schmuck indie dev talking smack yet has zero released games. Gr8 read tho!”
Indiestry

Likers Gonna Like : You put it so well. Instead of getting emotional about it you basically layed out why he caught flack and why he may continue to. He can be considered a like “super indie developer” with out any real games out there.
Michael

If Microsoft is telling him what he can or can’t do, then is he actually independent? Real question, not trying to be jerk. What the definition of independent for this contest?
Anonymous

the contest has no specific rules about it as far as i know, a game is independent if it claims to be. there have been games with budgets of 2.5 million (such as limbo) which have entered and won categorizes in the IGF
Michael Richey

I found it after a little googling: “Independently Created: The Nominating Committee must be confident that the submitted game was created in the ‘indie spirit’ by an independent game developer, fulfilling the question asked on the entry form. The Nominating Committee reserves the right to refuse any game at its sole discretion.”
marc

*Reasonable* IGF criticism: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/07/the-competition-the-story-behind-the-igfs-critics/
http://twitter.com/muzboz Murray Lorden

Great work ANTI CHAMBER!