Jonathan Blow Interview: “No Compromises”

I like his style as well as his arguments. Unfortunatelly, quite a lot of people cannot distinguish between self-confidence and arrogance – for those ants, any degree of valueing oneself or… gasp… seeing oneself as “above average” – regardless of it is justified or not – is illegal according to their slave-morale. They are even saying that themselves about themselves… their problem with him is not the validity of what he says, but “how” he says it. In other words: “It doesn’t matter if what you say is true and makes sense… the content doesn’t matter – all which matters is that you act and present yourself as if you are something special – which is forbidden.”

To be fair, I think the guy is a little bit pompous, self-important, and humorless. But you know what? I also think he has some of the most inspiring ideas on game design and production I’ve heard in years. The fact that very few of his critics in this thread seem to be able to accurately represent his arguments and instead resort to setting up flimsy straw men speaks volumes.
Guy may not be perfect, but he’s saying things that need to be said; and now he’s proved he can walk the walk while talking the talk.

Jenga, you are also a shitty troll. Go away.

Few months ago, when he was just a guy making a pretty indie game, I wanted to ask: why do I have to love Job Blow?!

Now, when he’s a guy who made that pretty indie game, suddelny I need to ask: why do I have to hate Jon Blow?!

What did this guy did to be suddenly hated for the stuff he was loved few months ago? Umm… made a good game? Doesn’t sound too terrible to me, to be honest :/.

game reporters are using the indie rockstars and their ‘rebellious’ attitude and their constant whining against “the man” as a selling point to create a new buzz in an otherwise dull industry and to sell stories. But one day when they’ve used them as much as they can, they’ll throw them away as old rags, and some people will be left on the cold floor, bleeding and sobbing.

The whole matter of calling collectibles unethical game design and implying that designers who resort to them hate their players kind of looks more like an admission of guilt than a call for action now that his game full of stars to collect is on the scene.

If people have issues with the way Jon Blow expresses things, they should listen to Chris Crawford. Their heads will explode.

That will be a good thing.

I haven’t noticed much attention being paid to Blow except in the context of Braid. Why does everyone say he’s so good at gathering attention to himself?

As an aside, this entry is a perfect example — it’s not really about Braid, it’s about Blow saying he never compromises.

The Fish backlash will come once Fez is released. Just wait for it.

@moi: I don’t particularly like Phil Fish either, nor dislike him, I don’t really know him. My friend Patrick Dugan did meet him and tells me he’s cool though. Plus, Phil Fish often posts on the forums here, and often comments on blogs, and Blow doesn’t (to my knowledge, anyway), which makes Fish seem more down-to-earth and approachable than Blow. I also think Fish has released games other than Fez? You don’t see 30 entries about Phil Fish, either. So it’s not really a good comparison.

@Craig Stern: I believe it’s largely a combination of knowing the right people (being good at networking), and just plain hard work. It takes work to prepare and give speeches, and not everyone is willing or even able to do that. I’m certainly not, I’d have too much stage fright.

@Paul Eres: Blow didn’t exist entirely in a vacuum before Braid. While I don’t really feel like digging up his resume, he was a columnist Game Developer Magazine, he’s worked on various games and middleware in the past, etc..

If indie projects are all that matter, he has a few prototypes on his site. They’re not polished, but they’re interesting in their own right.

If polished commercial indie projects are all that count, I imagine most of your favorite indie game makers don’t really matter (Cactus, Kenta Cho, Phil Fish, Derek Yu, Jon Mak, etc.) :).

Just for clarification: I am not jealous of Blow, I do not hate Blow, and I am not attacking everything in sight because my parents beat me or some shit like that. I haven’t read the interview with Blow, or much of anything he has said; I haven’t played Braid either, but would love to if only I had an x-box. The game looks like fun.
However, the “Compromise doesn’t suit my personality very well” line does make him look like, in the words of Mitch, an uppity douche-bag.

re Derek: That was part of my point actually, that it wasn’t your fault. He makes it easy to write up a quick entry about him, because he does and says things that people like to tell others about. But the effect is still that he gets more exposure than others do, just through the natural forces of how journalism works, not through any sort of incompetence or malevolence on anyone’s part. As for recommendations, usually when I find an interesting game that I think needs some recognition I pass the news along to Tim (just cause it’s easy to talk to him on instant messenger), although half the time when I do that I learn that he already reviewed it and was three steps ahead of me :D

re Impossible: I didn’t mean that he was in a vacuum. It makes sense that he used to be a games journalist though, I didn’t know that about him. But are you really saying that those things he has done makes him more deserving of two pages of entries about him when many other more accomplished (up until Braid’s release, that is) people had none? My point isn’t that he or the editors here are at fault, my point is that news works in a certain way, and he acts in a way (perhaps not even intentionally) which makes him get a disproportionate share of attention. Just through the natural forces of how news works, not through any conspiracy or ill-intent.

re Kobel: I think it’s more that, by saying that, he’s saying that other developers do compromise, and that he doesn’t. So it’s putting himself above others in that way. I don’t think anyone believes they compromise the quality of their game for external reasons. So the point isn’t that compromising artistic integrity is good, the point is that he’s saying that most people compromise that, and that he doesn’t. Which may or may not be true.

That seems like putting words in his mouth, but okay. It seems to me that if one wishes to publicly dispute that stance, which he does certainly seem to take, then it’s their responsibility to provide arguments to refute his rather than just calling him names.

It is, I believe, generally accepted in the industry that design by committee rarely produces good results. Is the chain of command typical of publicly owned game developers and publishers any different from this theoretical committee? The argument that because these organizations are structured this way BY LAW they must to some extent have mediocrity introduced to them seems to me to be a fairly solid argument, and one worthy of being actually debated rather than brushed aside in favor of straw men.

I suppose that could be one interpretation; however, having seen him speak about how publicly owned companies are legally obligated to not produce products that are personally meaningful to one person I think that that probably relates to what he’s saying here. That is to say, yes, he IS saying that compromise is in other developers’ personality, because it HAS to be for them to work in that kind of environment. Remember, compromise isn’t a bad thing! But, unfortunately, the kind of compromise that is NECESSARY to work in a company of that size and professionalism can by its very nature stifle honest creative output. So, again, what’s so all-fired offensive about saying that anyway?

@Paul Eres: I wouldn’t quite call him a games journalist. His articles were all pretty hardcore technical stuff. Generally when I think of “games journalist” I think of “game reviewer.” But I guess you’re right.

I think he’s as deserving as Cactus (at 3 pages) or Pixel (also at 2 pages.) He’s made a great game, he hosts the Experimental Gameplay workshop and he has interesting things to say, at least some of the time.

re Impossible: Understood. And I agree that he’s as deserving as Cactus or Pixel now. But I meant back in early 2008 or 2007, before he released Braid. But for me it still comes down to this: Pixel has created something like three (four?) great games, Cactus has created exactly one billion great games, and Braid created, at the time when most of those entries were written, none.

Maybe that’s too simplistic of a way of looking at it, but I tend to expect a site about indie games to give more attention to people who create them than people who (again, up until Braid) just talk about them. It might be simplistic, but I come from the Ohrrpgce community, whose motto was “shut up and make your game”, often abbreviated SUAMYG.

(Compared with, like, 17 Braid previews).

re people saying that to make him angry: That was really just a joke, I didn’t actually think that’s the reason why most of the acrimony exists.

re Braid demo: Curiously enough, I said almost the exact same thing in the IRC channel. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’d be hearing a LOT less “Super Mario” ripoff stuff if the demo had showcased a bit more of worlds 4-6.

I haven’t tried Iji yet (hope to have time this weekend, it looks great), but I honestly thought Braid was pretty amazingly brilliant and one of the best things I’ve played in years. I hope that doesn’t make me biased. :)

I’m going to bed now, but it’s been a pleasure talking to you, and I’m glad this discussion has been so civil (in rather sharp contrast to the discussion that spawned it). Good night.

Jon is someone who clearly wants to figure out the nature of things, whether it’s the meaning of gameplay, the development process, or the relationship between indies and the rest of the industry. Or, you know, himself. I don’t know if we should hold it against him that he thinks out loud about his own role in the big process. I believe it is a really good thing for the community to have someone like Jon who creates discussions about these things.

Daniel’s relative quiet as a game developer is also very admirable, but it’s hard to capture that on a site for indie game news.

Also, I wouldn’t think about it like… for every Jonathan Blow post some great indie game didn’t get mentioned. The posts don’t really compete with one another in that way!

And ultimately, I think the kind of coverage you’re looking for is the kind that Tim already provides on IndieGames.com. And Tim does that job well enough that I don’t see too much reason to try to do it, too! I want to promote as many great games and developers as possible on this site, but I’m not very concerned with being “fair,” per se, when it comes to who gets how many posts.

Well, consider too that Blow was getting interviews and mentions in places like gamasutra, kotaku, joystiq, etc., before he even released a game and before anyone even knew if his game was any good. So it’s not just restricted to TIGSource, I was just using it as a close-at-hand example.

And even if you don’t strive for fairness, I think at least striving for variety is a good idea, hearing about the same games so often gets a bit boring. (Again, no offense intended to Derek or the other editors, this is just intended as constructive criticism, feel free to ignore it.)

Most developers that are backed by stockholders and so on that have a multi-million dollar budget, do not take chances. That in practice means they will compromise on just about everything, trying to squeeze in as much as possible, usually as main market oriented as possible, often resulting in a quite mediocre product.

I think if big AAA developers would concentrate on far smaller markets, then they probably would make better games for less money.

Regarding criticizing games.
Don’t forget that games are art.
So measuring how good is a game, is like measuring how good is an art work.
In other words, there is no standard for measuring how good is art(or a game).
Art is really in the eye of the beholder, the “goodness” of art is subjective.
So how do we measure what is a good game?
Is it how popular and successful it is?
(The most popular and successful computer is actually solitare)
Is it the production values?
Is it how fun people are having with it? But that is completly subjective.
In other words, you can only say why YOU don’t like this game or that game. Or why YOU don’t like the games from the big companies.
But you can’t tell other people what games to like or not, or if they are stupid or smart for liking one game or another.
In other words, its really complicated, and lets just concentrate on making more games rather than talking about it so much.
I think.

Compromise is necessary for a commercial product. It is bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD for *art*. So, I don’t get what the issue is with Blow disliking compromise. Unless you’re stupid enough to think artistic integrity is just “pretentious” crap.

“Pretentious,” by the way, is the stupidest, emptiest criticism ever. So you are a fucking idiot if you use it about Blow or anybody else.

Have a good day.