Phil Fish

Phil Fish was born Philippe Poisson in Montreal in 1984. He was raised in Quebec, where his parents shared their interest in art and gaming with him. Fish's father translated The Legend of Zelda into French so the two could play together. Fish credits these memories as formative, and later cited their influence on Fez. He graduated from the 2004 Design and Digital Art for Video Games program at the Montreal NAD (National Animation and Design Centre).

Fish began his career at the video game publisher Ubisoft, where he worked on Open Season as a level designer. He was initially excited for the job but grew disenchanted with their large development teams and working conditions. Fish later described it as "the worst experience of [his] life". He was later fired from the company.

On May 24, 2006, Fish won the Artificial Mind and Movement Award for Best Cut-Scene at the annual NAD Center Awards of Excellence Gala. Later that year, Fish began work as a level designer at Artificial Mind and Movement, where he designed for film tie-in games including The Golden Compass.

Fish is a founding member of Kokoromi, a group that designs and promotes experimental video games. His November 2006 Arcadia Festival event, GAMMA 01 Audio Feed, featured games that incorporated live sound. Fish planned a similar event, GAMMA 256, for 2007, and a third event, GAMMA 3D, for November 2008 in Montreal. Fish was invited to present a lecture on GAMMA 01 at the 2007 Game Developers Conference. He also wrote a review of the 1999 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver in the 2007 book Space Time Play: Synergies Between Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level.

Fish has been characterized by Sean Hollister of The Verge as "notorious for voicing angry, controversial opinions about the state of video games". In a notable incident at the Game Developers Conference in March 2012, a Japanese developer asked Fish for his opinion on modern Japanese games, to which Fish replied, "your games just suck". Many condemned Fish's comment as racist; Alex Donaldson of VG247 wrote in 2023 that it "became the banner-bearer" for racist Western attitudes towards Japanese-developed games. Conversely, Mega Man co-creator Keiji Inafune defended Fish's remark as necessary criticism. Fish initially defended the comments, but later acknowledged that he had been rude and apologized.