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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Das Boot:
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?

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.

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.

Hero in a half shell:
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.

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."

I once said I dont give a fuck about what movie critics think about games, and I will only listen once a developer comes out to talk about games.

Well, turns out I dont give a fuck what developers think either. *Shrug* Guy seems hellbent on presenting himself as the savior of the industry though. Cute.

Daystar Clarion:

remnant_phoenix:

Hero in a half shell:
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.

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*

remnant_phoenix:
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.

Hold on everyone, while reading another article about Blow's new game I came across this quote from the man himself:

"Most games are not trying to be about anything serious, they're just entertainment games," he said. "I'm not trying to bash that in any way, that's just not what I'm doing. If a game tries to be like a movie, it tries to be like an action movie, not Fried Green Tomatoes, but both of those are movies."

I think Blow actually gets what we are saying, it's the author of this article that has deified him, in a "Life of Brian" kind of way. He's not the messiah, he's an indie developer!

Daystar Clarion:

remnant_phoenix:

Hero in a half shell:
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?

Oh my god, Jon Blow never said anything like that. He's been a huge supporter of indie games and has given a lot of praise to games that you probably wouldn't consider "artistic", such as Super Meat Boy. He thinks modern, AAA games have become intellectually lazy, and can you really disagree? The writing, voice acting, and other production values keep increasing, but gameplay is in a pretty sad state. And even the writing is still pretty bad compared to film. There are exceptions obviously, lots of them. But come on. Have you played Call of Duty single player? Or Uncharted? Even supposedly nerdy, technical games like RPGs have been seriously dumbed down over the years. See Mass Effect. Strategy is probably the only genre left that regularly requires higher thought functions from the player.

You know, Notch and Gabe don't go running around shouting about how awesome they are, mainly because they aren't insecure little prima donnas. This video has never been more fitting.

erttheking:
You know, Notch and Gabe don't go running around shouting about how awesome they are, mainly because they aren't insecure little prima donnas.

And funnily enough, neither is Blow. Funny how people are so quick to respond to what they think someone said, not what they actually said.

Blow has never tried to big up his own worth, proclaim his own genius, or in any way try to say that his games are better than everyone else's. As others have already mentioned, he's already given plenty of praise to other indie games and developers. His ire seems to be reserved for the mainstream AAA gaming industry. And right now, I can't say I blame him. Triple A games are more popular now than ever, yet Call Of Duty and Battlefield are every bit as braindead as Doom and Wolfenstein were when they created the FPS genre twenty years ago.

Daystar Clarion:

remnant_phoenix:

Hero in a half shell:
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?

Lone Survivor might.

Seriously, Jasper Byrne is a better game maker than Blow.

pre·ten·tious /pri'tenCHis/
Adjective:
Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

Braid had all the trappings one might associate with being artsy but it was all totally empty and meaningless. The story was superficially 'artsy' but it was totally vapid. The art was a little different but a lot of it wasn't particularly good.

ALL YOU DID WAS MAKE A FUCKING PLATFORMER. Congratulations on making a good one but you are no more an artist than anyone else who accomplished the same.

What a knob. Claims his wealth is "fictional", but drives arond in a $150000 and lives in a hilltop condo. Hey dickhead, if it is so unimportant to you how about not spending it on frivolous shit and let some of that fake money go to very real disease research and poor and starving people.

All of this reeks of a poser. Loves going to nightclubs but dismisses anyone who goes to nightclubs. Sounds like every pretentious douchebag that made me hate college.

erttheking:
You know, Notch

I dislike him much more than Blow, at least Blow has made a fully functional game and put his resources back into making something new. Notch can't even be bothered to invest in customer support, four months wait just to hear back is completely unacceptable... especially when you cannot access the game you paid good money for. Actually, I think Notch is far more pretentious to boot what with all the intellectually dishonest pandering to various groups such as pirates.

I'm much more interested in The Witness and Miegakure (sounds crazy, off to Google) than Scrolls, so I guess there is some merit to these artsy-types approach to games.

Daystar Clarion:

RaikuFA:

Daystar Clarion:

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

Oh Journey, will anything ever beat you?

Lone Survivor might.

Seriously, Jasper Byrne is a better game maker than Blow.

Tell me of this Lone Survivor.

I'm curious.

Its a 2D survival horror game for the PC.

Have you watched his interview with the Bomb Crew (or was it Gamespot?). That guy is so fucking annoying, I wanted to murder him after 2 min.

Das Boot:

remnant_phoenix:

Das Boot:
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?

Yes gaming is just an entertainment medium. The problem is all of these so called art games that have come up so far fail horribly. You look at them and either go ah that cute or god dam this sucks but either way five minutes later they will both be in the garbage can.

I agree that "arty games" usually don't turn out well, but they're not all bad. And there are many games that aren't considered "arty" that I would still consider art. Games like Red Dead Redemption, Bioshock, Portal, heck, even Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (campaign mode) all had artfully-constructed narratives and art styles, even if they weren't blatantly "art games."

Just my opinion, but saying that gaming is just an entertainment medium and nothing more is comparably close-minded to folks like Blow who insist that all games should live up to his standards of gaming as art.

You blow, Jonathan.

Between the Messiah complex, the infuriating and incongruous statements on money, and the idea that "gaming" is something that can just be taken as a whole, that piece really isn't good publicity for him. Ironic, its almost worshipful tone and content considered.