Poll: Gaming is "...juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy" says Jonathan Blow.

[remnant_phoenix]

So I found this article...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/1/

...and it was an interesting read. It really sheds light on how Blow and his "followers" view the industry as a whole. SPOILER: They are very critical of it. They decry gaming in general as "...juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy."

Now, I really liked Braid, but the author of this article seems like fawning Jonathan Blow fanboy who strongly implies that Braid is the prime (perhaps ONLY) example of games as art.

Yeah...

So this has the potential for a good discussion. Let's commence.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I tried, but I honestly couldn't finish that article. The journalist seems hell-bent on showing us that he has plenty access to a thesaurus and Mr. Blow himself seems to be the kind of pretentious celebral artsy type that I can't stand.

But really, all of gaming? Every game? From Ico and Shadow of the Colossus all the way to Duke Nuke'em? That's such a hilarious over-generalization that it is sad. Indie has always been the place to be "artistic" in, this is true for every form of media we have, no matter if we are talking indie music, indie movies or indie games. Mainstream? Yeah, not so much art there. No one heralds Transformers, The Expendables, Dodgeball, Night at the Museum or 300 as greatly artistic. But they are still high profile movies. Because not all movies want to be art and not all games want to be art.

Some times you want to see Steven Seagal punch a bunch of guys or Sara Jessica Parker obsess over her shoes. Others you want to see Christian Bale portraying a guilt-ridden man's descent into madness or a Serbian Film. Why can't it be the same with games? Sometimes I just want to kick it back and guide a sim around, others I want to walk around a lonely island wondering what mysteries it holds.

But I do take offense to being called juvenile and intellectually lazy.

 

[Sixcess]

Jesus christ. I couldn't get through more than the first page of that hagiographic drivel.

Developers need to shut their fucking mouths and get on with making their own games good, rather than pointing out where everyone else is supposedly going wrong.

It's this kind of elitist nonsense that makes the games as art discussion come across as pretentious navel gazing. It's this kind of out of control egotism that led to Bioware's founders running their mouths off constantly about how TOR was going to be one of the greatest achievements in the history of video gaming.

Yes, Blow sounds like an EA stooge, waving his dick around in an attempt to convince the rest of us poor uninformed proles that he's important. I can't think of any worse criticism.

Edit: and I'm honestly a bit surprised that this kind of profile writing still exists. I thought GQ/Esquire style worship-me-because-I-have-made-money writing died in the early 90s.

 

[hazabaza1]

How about the guy actually makes a good game before getting the right be such a pretentious ****?

 

[DJjaffacake]

He seems from the article to be one of those people who pretend to be really into eastern philosophy and the environment and stuff like that, and claim to not care about money, but actually just live a wealthy lifestyle in California. He also seems like the kind of self obsessed prick that believes that his thing is superior to everyone elses, and that anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand.

In fact, how dare he call me and millions of other people who he has never met intellectually lazy. The other two are hardly insults, being juvenile and silly sometimes is just fun, but just because someone enjoys Call of Duty or Battlefield or The Elder Scrolls or whatever, does not mean they can't be intellectual. Fuck him up his pretentious dickface arsehole.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

How about the guy actually makes a good game before getting the right be such a pretentious ****?

Second.

Braid was a'right, nothing special.

Talk about an inflated sense of self worth.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I wonder how long its going to take these "art" folks to realise that the purpose of a game is to entertain us.

Is gaming just an entertainment medium? Or can it be an artistic medium as well? Where is the line between art and entertainment?

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Oh lord, did you watch the video in the article? It basically decries every single game currently being made as mindless action or too simple to be meaningful, and then introduces Jonathan Blow as some sort of utterly revolutionary, completely unique entity of artistic genius in a sea of morons. It's like he's the God emperor of mankind to gaming. "Only he can save us from stupid games, only he knows the way! We must follow his righteous crusade of intellectual art!"

I admire what he has achieved. The man's a millionaire, and he earned it, but he has a really low opinion of the artistic merits of the game industry. You don't need to devote your entire game to political commentary, or existential thought for it to be art. All Quiet on the Western Front still had guns and bombs and death and war and trenchfoot.

It just frustrates me that they completely disregard all other games as art because they are primarily designed to be fun, or to turn a profit, that doesn't stop them also having meaningful themes that can be explored, or deeper messages about philosophical subjects.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Talk about an inflated sense of self worth.

I guess if I had a bank account with a high number followed by a shitload of zeroes, I'd have an inflated sense of worth too.

Sadly, my bank account usually only contains a single zero, or a negative number.

Regardless, Blow sounds like a prat.

 

[Hazy992]

Jon Blow is such a colossal douchebag. He makes one successful art game and now he thinks he knows better than everyone. What a pretentious dickwad.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Talk about an inflated sense of self worth.

I guess if I had a bank account with a high number followed by a shitload of zeroes, I'd have an inflated sense of worth too.

Sadly, my bank account usually only contains a single zero, or a negative number.

Regardless, Blow sounds like a prat.

It seems to happen to a lot of people.

Just look at Notch, guy makes a good Lego simulator and all of sudden he's the expert of the Indie scene.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

It just frustrates me that they completely disregard all other games as art because they are primarily designed to be fun, or to turn a profit, that doesn't stop them also having meaningful themes that can be explored, or deeper messages about philosophical subjects.

I agree. If someone believes that Braid is the only truly artistic video game, they have a very narrow-minded approach to artfulness.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

It just frustrates me that they completely disregard all other games as art because they are primarily designed to be fun, or to turn a profit, that doesn't stop them also having meaningful themes that can be explored, or deeper messages about philosophical subjects.

I agree. If someone believes that Braid is the only truly artistic video game, they have a very narrow-minded approach to artfulness.

Especially since Braid wasn't very artistic to begin with.

Oh Journey, will anything ever beat you?

 

[Kahunaburger]

This article is hilarious.

Braid?an innovative time-warping platformer (think Super Mario Bros. meets Borges)

Borges

Borges

Ahahahahahaha no.

?One day I?m looking at my bank account and there?s not much money, and the next day there?s a large number in there and I?m rich. In both cases, it?s a fictional number on the computer screen, and the only reason that I?m rich is because somebody typed a number into my bank account.? For the world?s most existentially obsessed game developer, coming into seven figures just provided another opportunity to ponder the nature of meaning in the universe.

"Dude, have you ever realized that 'being rich' just means you have a lot of money somewhere?" Yeah, no shit.

Blow is the only developer on the planet who gives lectures with titles like ?Video Games and the Human Condition,? the only one who speaks of Italo Calvino?s influence on his work, and the only one to so rile up the gamer community with his perceived pretentiousness that the popular gamer blog Kotaku used him as the centerpiece of a post titled ?When You Love the Game But Not Its Creator.?

 

[remnant_phoenix]

It just frustrates me that they completely disregard all other games as art because they are primarily designed to be fun, or to turn a profit, that doesn't stop them also having meaningful themes that can be explored, or deeper messages about philosophical subjects.

I agree. If someone believes that Braid is the only truly artistic video game, they have a very narrow-minded approach to artfulness.

Especially since Braid wasn't very artistic to begin with.

Oh Journey, will anything ever beat you?

Haven't yet played Journey, or Flower, but since I recently converted to PS3 from 360, I've been hearing more and more that tells me I should check them out.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

It just frustrates me that they completely disregard all other games as art because they are primarily designed to be fun, or to turn a profit, that doesn't stop them also having meaningful themes that can be explored, or deeper messages about philosophical subjects.

I agree. If someone believes that Braid is the only truly artistic video game, they have a very narrow-minded approach to artfulness.

Especially since Braid wasn't very artistic to begin with.

Oh Journey, will anything ever beat you?

Haven't yet played Journey, or Flower, but since I recently converted to PS3 from 360, I've been hearing more and more that tells me I should check them out.

I haven't played Flower, but if you listen to one thing I post on these forums...

Get Journey, you need to play this game.

 

[Calbeck]

In after five million "Blow" jokes. That out of the way, this sums up how pretentious the man is:

"it?s a fictional number on the computer screen" (referring to his own BANK ACCOUNT).

Er, no, Blow, it isn't fictional. You can't buy a car, a house, food, or your next night at your local MENSA-approved cerebrawhorehouse (where lovely ladies will rustle your jimmies by telling you how brilliant you are), with FICTIONAL ANYTHING.

This, the article's author described as "the philosophical, Camus-puffing-a-cigarette sense of a deeply ridiculous cosmic joke" --- no. That's called "I hate rich people and now I have to explain to myself how I'm not *actually* rich because then I would be forced to hate myself".

What a tit.

The more I read, though, the more I think it's a toss-up between Blow and the author as to who's the biggest prat. "For the world?s most existentially obsessed game developer, coming into seven figures just provided another opportunity to ponder the nature of meaning in the universe."

Seriously? Claiming your own personal wealth doesn't exist, because you can't deal with the concept that it does, to the extent of saying "only reason that I?m rich is because somebody typed a number into my bank account", has BUGGER ALL to do with the "nature" of any damn thing, let alone the meaning of the universe.

Oh, I see.

I... I was wrong. I failed to grasp the reality of what just happened here...

They're a PAIR of tits.

We, dear readers, have been duly flashed.

*bows humbly in reverence of such skilled wonkery*

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

SPOILER: They are very critical of it. They decry gaming in general as "...juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy."

Says the man whose magnum opus is a Super Mario clone with a shoehorned in time reversal mechanic and some vaguely worded tone poems that somehow make it "art." It's art, but it's the kind of juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy art that only modern artists who don't understand that Dada was supposed to be a joke make.

Edit: heck, not even a joke. Dada was a scathing criticism of the critics, an attempt to make something so terrible that it would be blatantly obvious, but to package it up as "art," and see if they bought it. They did. Unfortunately, so did several other generations of artists, who no longer understand or care that they're doing with a straight face what was supposed to be a parody.