Phil Fish

Phil Fish
Fish at GAMMA 3D, 2008
Born	Philippe Poisson 1984 (age 32–33) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Residence	Nashville, Tennessee
Occupation	Game designer
Years active	2006–2013
Employer	Polytron Corporation
Known for	Fez

Philippe Poisson (born 1984), better known as Phil Fish, is a French-Canadian former indie game designer best known for his work on the 2012 platform game Fez published by his company, Polytron Corporation. He was born and raised in Quebec, where his experiences with Nintendo games in his youth would later influence his game design. He studied game design at the Montreal National Animation and Design Centre, and worked at Ubisoft and Artificial Mind and Movement before starting Polytron in 2008.

Fish was a founding member of Kokoromi, a collective that explores experimental gameplay ideas, and organized Montreal's annual GAMMA games events. While Fez was in development, Fish worked on other unreleased games at Polytron including Super Hypercube and Power Pill.

Fez was released in April 2012 to widespread acclaim after a protracted five-year development cycle. Its final phases of development were shown in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which brought Fish fame unusual for game developers. Following an online argument in July 2013, Fish publicly announced his exit from game development, citing long-term mistreatment by the industry.

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 ().

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.