TIGInterview: Jonathan Blow

All in favour of striking the word “pretentious” from the English language say “Aye”.

@etc

I share your frustration, but that was unneccesary. Assaulting a man with a caps lock like that is ungentlemanly. I disagree with his position as well, but he’s been courteous so far. Let’s not turn this into a flame war.

There really is no hope in debating anything here since Jonathan Blow is the self appointed God of indie gaming, game design, and everything. And his people have their noses so far up his ass, and are so deeply wallowing in his brilliance that you can’t even hope to convince them otherwise.

Falsion, what makes you a self appointed judge of everything?

@give up please its hopeless

Well, if you bothered to articulate why you feel this way, perhaps people would actually listen to you. As it stands, all I see is an assortment of standard malcontents.

in other words im stupid and nothing of value was lost

@falsion

That’s too bad, you seem to be sincere in your beliefs. It would be nice to see what lies at their root.

If you made a succesful game, wouldn’t you want to share your knowledge with others? That would involve saying that certain things are better than others. Like it or not, but if some games can be excellent, other games have to suck.

“If you made a succesful game, wouldn’t you want to share your knowledge with others?”

Yeah, but there is a difference between sharing your knowledge with others, as in things like what exactly goes into your mind when you make something, what works in making a game, etc. and saying what you think a game should or shouldn’t be and denouncing things that just don’t happen to work for you. I would do the former, but the latter I just can’t wrap my head around.

@falsion

What if you thought that a particular game was really bad? Not in the sense of poor execution, but damaging artistically? Why is it that other people’s work sacrosanct? Criticizing other games is part of the dialogue. Jon doesn’t do this out of arrogance, he has very good reasons for his opinions. Perhaps you don’t agree with them, it that case you should address his arguments.

@Paul Eres

I feel that linear narrative is a red herring as far as interactive works go. Other media can do it much better than computers, so aping them is a dead end. The problem is that computers can do so many things that it’s easy to go down side passages. Movies are familiar and relatively easy, so that’s what the industry leeched onto.

I think that once we’re comfortable with the medium, we’ll be able to have equal or greater impact compared to static media. Then again, maybe I’ve been listening to Crawford too much.

I can’t really justify my optimism for the procedural approach other than saying that it’s more true to the medium. That said, it’s possible that we’ll need hundreds of years to reach parity. If you thought that it was a fool’s errand, I wouldn’t quibble. The proof will be in the pudding, either way.

Then again why IS Jonathan Blow in a position to give lectures to people on game design anyway? Because he made a single successful game that managed to get decent exposure on XBLA?

The thing is though, anyone can become successful if they try hard enough and are given the right circumstances, even this falsion guy here, but does that make them an authority on game design? I mean, would you want falsion, who under the right circumstances probably could make a successful game, to be dictate to you what or what isn’t a good game? Cuz that’d a very scary thought indeed.

“I’ve never heard him say outright that story-based games are bad or that you just shouldn’t do them.”

And nobody is saying he has (except maybe falsion). But he did say that if you want to make something emotional with narrative, traditional storytelling isn’t the way to do it.

Which is just kind of false on the face of it to me. I’ve played tens of thousands of games, so I’ve a pretty broad knowledge of which games have evoked emotion in me and which haven’t. And it’s usually games with linear stories that did it. I don’t think making Ico procedurally hold Yorda’s hand (for instance) is as emotional to most players as good old pre-written dialogue in, say, Vanguard Bandits (which did have a branching story with five interesting branches, but all were pre-written and used traditional storytelling).

I think it’s fair if he personally hasn’t felt very emotionally attached to games with linear stories. Maybe he just doesn’t play the games I play, who knows. There could be a lot of explanations. But I think it’s bad advice to basically say to game developers: if you want to make something emotional through narrative, don’t use traditional storytelling techniques in games. Because it’s not true, they have a far better chance of making something emotional for the player if they use traditional storytelling techniques.

Does that mean that there isn’t some inherent contradiction between linear stories and interactivity? Does that mean that he isn’t write in his points or criticism? Of course not. But it’s nonetheless wrong to suggest that traditional storytelling in games has a worse chance of evoking emotion than experimental non-linear procedurally generated stories. Maybe one day we’ll be at the point where things like Storytron can be emotionally compelling. But until we are, it’s bad advice to tell game developers to just disregard the thousands of years of collected wisdom on narrative and storytelling.

“Then again why IS Jonathan Blow in a position to give lectures to people on game design anyway? Because he made a single successful game that managed to get decent exposure on XBLA?”

There are many people who made successful games. Yet only a few of them give lectures. What does that tell you?

Mainly, that even though a successful game may help, its not the only thing which matters. Hint: Designers have created works which became popular, without at the time of the creation being aware why it would work out. With Blow, that is not the case: When he created, he was aware of what he was doing and why. BUT: Even this is not enough, unless you also have the skills to communicate this understanding – which is another skill which applies to Blow.

So you see: It is not ONE thing, which mattered, but the combination of multiple aspects.

@the whiners: The question of Jonathan Blow’s credibility isn’t one that lowly readers here can refute. Its a matter for the whole industry, and as such, you lose. You individually can think what he says is crap, but that is your own opinion. He never says that his opinion is anything more, its TIG and the rest of the industry who have given him the respect because he has earned it. Do your reading and research. If you listen/read/watch the things he says (not just in this interview), its quite obvious that he puts more thought into game design than you or some paltry reviewer. It’s just flat out stupid to say that your opinion holds as much sway as his. Sure, you have as much right to yours as he does to his, but he has something to back it up: an award winning game. If you didn’t like it, you can’t change the fact that the rest of the industry did. Go check out metacritic. It’s almost universal.

If you disagree with what he says, prove otherwise by actions. Don’t sit here like a troll and complain. Go make a game with a linear story and prove that they can still hold as much as another type of game. View it as a challenge rather than a dumb opinion. You can think for yourself, and nobody says that what Jonathan says is law.

As for me, I listen to what he has to say because it has an academic ring to it which is rare in today’s industry. The industry is filled with crap, but there are gems to be found. Lucky for us, its more commonplace in the indie scene, but it is still rare nonetheless.

*he makes

er, typo again sorry

Oh and please don’t bring up the “if you haven’t made a game, you shouldn’t have an opinion” argument. I think we already went over this on the last comment page or so a while back.

@”Go make a game with a linear story and prove that they can still hold as much as another type of game. View it as a challenge rather than a dumb opinion.”

Done and done. You don’t actually remember which games I’ve developed, do you? :)

I don’t view it as a dumb opinion. I’m not saying Blow’s dumb or arrogant the way falsion is. I’m just saying he may be missing something: that empirically, the most emotional responses people get from games tend to be from games with linear stories.

@Alex Vostrov:

I can’t say it feels very weird, no. And no, I don’t think it’d be better if it were a book. Is that old “if you want to make a story in a game, write a book” argument the really the best you can come up with? Don’t you see how silly that type of argument is? Stories exist in dozens, maybe hundreds of media. It’s not just books. It’s books, movies, songs (through their lyrics), poetry, plays, games, and on and on. All of those media have *successfully* told captivating stories.

I think the basic thing I find wrong with this attitude of “I’ve never played a game with as good a story as a book or movie” is that I have, and that just the fact that someone else hasn’t can’t really convince someone who has of the idea that games can’t do stories as well as other media can — because they can. It’s also dismissing (and dismissive of) a huge section of people who play games who enjoy the stories they contain, and telling all those people basically: no, you’re doing it wrong, you shouldn’t tell stories linearly in games, it’s not good even though you enjoy it.

@Paul:

I think you’re here falling into one of the traps in which falsion as well fell: That you like something tells you nothing about “what is possible”. Different scales of rating, you know? At this point in time, most people know traditional storytelling. They have experience with that. They also know about a few attempts of dynamic stories… mostly attempts which still kinda stick to the traditional style and which just modify it a little bit to get multiple paths. So, if what does that tell you about the rating-scale at work here? Right: We havent seen many successful attempts yet of interactive stories – and when i say interactive here, i do not just mean “the player can press some buttons”… rather i mean that the story is CREATED by the interactive aspect: Playing the game creates the story.

To compare it to the earlier MMO-Analogy: It may very well be that most of current MMO players are satisfied with what those games currently are, and that they like it – but that tells you nothing about what may be possible beyond that, and how satisfying that would be to those players.

Here’s my take on it: The major advantage of a static story is that it is cheap. You dont need to design mechanics, you dont need to design AI, you dont need to take into account any kind of dynamics. You just write the story – which means that you can put all your effort into that single story. Depending on the preferences of the player, the story may very well be emotionally intense to that specific player.

BUT:
1. In that specific regard, it is not a game – it is a novel or a movie. So without other elements in the “game”, it doesn’t even make sense to call it “linear storytelling in a game”. What you created in that regard, was perhaps a wonderful novel, but not a game. That doesn’t make it by definition better or worse – its just that its no game in that regard – its something else.

2. What if we do not only take players into account which optimally match the story? Well, in that case a strength of dynamic stories becomes apparent: They adapt to the player. What the player experience is no longer “the game story”, but rather HIS/HER story. This is important, because it means that the story has a connection to the person playing it… and this, if done well, does increase emotional attachment and intensity.

3. Interaction itself is strongly linked to personal attachment and building a relationship with something. In the case of interactive stories, the player is no longer “told” the story, but rather he partially is “doing” it.

So, my take: Interactive stories have far more emotional potential – but they are also much more expensive. A lot of that expensiveness comes from having to create an “engine” for something like that and having to do lots of research beforehand – to do it really well, you need to understand how the characters in your game “work”, not just “what they are doing”. After one did all that homework, future games building on that may be significantly less effort… but well, nowadays this is an obscurity, so you’ll have to do everything yourself – and this “everything” may very well be enough workhours to do 4 other linear or “multiple-ending” games instead.

Word.

I’d love to continue discussing this Alex, but think it’d be best to address this in a better place than this thread. Are you a member of the TIGSource forum? We could create a thread about this. I prefer discussion there due to email notification, ease of quoting, ease of editing, avoiding anonymous internet trolls intruding randomly into the discussion, etc.

What, Blow on TIGS ? AGAIN ?
How long do you people need to push that mediocrity out of the water ? Let it sink already. I swear, all this Braid rage really smells artificial, i havent personally met anyone who got such a fangasm from it as you guys are, everyone i know said it was a “meh” game.
Not to mention Blow totally betraying his original supporters and going to consoles, great job on alienating people who dug up your name out of the scrap heap.

@Paul, I wasn’t singling you out. And no, I didn’t know who you were by name, the same as you don’t know who I am. Sorry for that, but I don’t have time to read everything in the indie scene. It’s things that grab my attention that do get read, however, and most things by Jonathan happen to be on my radar lately. By definition you haven’t been whining, since your arguments contain logic that can be followed by those of us who can actually read :).

Regarding it being bad advice to tell someone to try procedural storytelling: I don’t necessarily agree. Who is going to finally make this happen if not game programmers? Why not tell them to try it, or how else do you think it might happen? I do agree that unless you think you’ve got the right sauce, that going with what works is never a bad decision.

That being said, I respect Jonathan for having the balls to say stories in games are crap. Some people are bugged by his “arrogance,” but really, who else is going to tell people that their boring stories suck? Most of today’s consumers aren’t doing it. I don’t necessarily agree with what he says all the time or how he says it, but I do understand what it is that he is trying to say. He is encouraging people to (pardon the cliche) “think outside the box.” He doesn’t say “this is how you make innovative games,” but rather says that thinking outside the box will lead you in the right direction. Why not do a little exploration rather than taking the well-worn trail. Everyone has their own path. Some people will make great games following the time=tested paths, while others (yet undiscovered talents) will walk on these less-traveled paths. It is these who will be bringing new things to light.

Jonathan Blow isn’t relevant and any claims about how much a genius he is are overblown due to his success with how overrated Braid has managed to become.

In the reviews for Braid, all they talk about is how its a work of art. That it is stunning, and beautiful and mesmerizing. Some even say that the gameplay feels rather incomplete as a puzzle platformer, yet still give it perfect reviews for being a work of art.

The thing is though, as a game it’s rather lacking. It’s nothing more than a jigsaw puzzle game dumped on top of a platform game where the platform game is secondary and used as nothing but a means to find pieces for the cross word puzzle game. And to make it even worse, the platform game aspect of it has no point beyond finding puzzle pieces. And you can’t go to other levels without completing them, but completing them does nothing since the game is really just a jigsaw puzzle game and not primarily a platformer.

Yet that’s ignored because the game and overall feel and style of it amazes the shit out of the reviewers.

Jonathan Blow if anything just managed to make a game that just really impresses people so much that they don’t really care if its much of a game or not.

Yet, he acts like he can comment on what makes a game when he has failed to make a game but just an interactive work of art. The only people who actually think he is relevant are those too stupid to realize just why his game was so successful in the first place, and that is for all the reasons other than it being a game.

“i havent personally met anyone who got such a fangasm from it as you guys are, everyone i know said it was a “meh” game.”

“Jonathan Blow if anything just managed to make a game that just really impresses people so much that they don’t really care if its much of a game or not.”

Yeah, it’s a ‘fangasm,’ and we all really hate Braid, we just pretend because it makes us feel special.

How hard is it to grasp that some people actually like it? I understand you don’t like it. I never showed up to your house and forced it down your throat. Are you really both so unimaginative that you can’t grasp someone else having different preferences?

If you think the entire internet should be tailored to your preferences, get used to disappointment. Otherwise, what the hell are you complaining about?

Maybe that is a reason why people take issues with him saying how things should or shouldn’t be because he himself doesn’t even actually do most of the things he tries to talk and share his “expertise” about.

“The thing is though, as a game it’s rather lacking.”

I’m tired of arguing with people that a game isn’t just one set thing, so I’ll pass the buck to the German philosopher Wittgenstein (excerpt from Philosophical Investigations, Part I):

“66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call “games”. I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? — Don’t say: “There must be something common, or they would not be called ‘games’ ” — but look and see whether there is anything common to all. — For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look! — Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. — Are they all ‘amusing’? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! sometimes similarities of detail.”

I don’t get what you’er saying chris whitman. You high?

Also for everybody here: there is an old saying
“You don’t have to be a cook to say that the food is bad”