(Fish's Twitter account has since been set to a protected status, locking out any who weren't previously following him.)

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"I fucking hate this industry," Fish later Tweeted, saying the ugliness of facing nonstop criticism and nastiness had caused him to think, repeatedly, about leaving the business for good.

Finally, an hour ago, Fish tweeted "im done, FEZ II is canceled. goodbye." Polytron repeated the same statement moments later.

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Fez was released last spring on Xbox 360 after more than five years in development. It was widely acclaimed by reviewers upon release. Fish and his work in progress were featured prominently in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, to which Beer referred in his video rant.

Kotaku reached out to Fish to inquire if he was serious about the cancellation of Fez II. "yup. it's just not worth it anymore." He replied.

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Fez II, announced last month, was in development for PC but not for Xbox consoles; Fish alluded to unhappy experiences with Microsoft over the publishing and patching of Fez as a reason why.

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Kotaku has reached out to Marcus Beer for his reaction to this situation as well. Any comment he provides will be updated here.

Update: Fish, four hours after announcing Fez II's cancellation, maintained via Twitter that "im not cancelling FEZ II because some boorish fuck said something stupid, im doing it to get out of games ... and im getting out of games because i choose not to put up with this abuse anymore." An update on Polytron's site likewise says "this is isn’t the result of any one thing, but the end of a long, bloody campaign." The final straw, though, seems apparent.

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To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.