The profile of [Jonathan] Blow is interesting; what isn't is the facile presentation of [video] games as a artless wasteland, with Blow as the only artist and savior of the medium. I really liked Braid and the video description in this article managed to make me hate it a little. Subject does not make something artistic (be it violence or plumbers or an island of puzzles), a contemplative tone does not make something artistic, referencing other artists does not make something artistic, aping the "classy" bits of other mediums (classical music, painterly aesthetics) does not make something artistic.Ha ha. I generally avoid video games, but this (bizarrely long) article really set off my bullshit detector. What is wrong with The Atlantic?!
Art is the skillful application of technique toward personal expression, and there are plenty of games that fall into that category--yes, even a few in the mainstream, like Bioshock, Heavy Rain, and LA Noire. And there's a world of independent artistic games out there that does not begin and end with Blow. To use a film analogy, you've written the equivalent of an article about 1970s Cassavetes while ignoring or denigrating both his contemporaries (Coppola, Roeg, Scorcese [sic], Kubrick) and his predecessors.
It's doubly unfortunate that your simplistic and (although I hate to see the word thrown around) pretentious dismissal of the entire non-Blow video game output to date appears to have been written for people who have never played or heard of a video game before, because you've told those people why they shouldn't ever bother.
There are important discussions to be had about the nature and state of the medium, but boiling them down into "games are guns/sex/juvenile, except for Blow" does nothing but stifle discussion and close minds.
May 14, 2012
"What a ridiculously insulting article" in The Atlantic.
Says a commenter on "The Most Dangerous Gamer":
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Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony with The Witness, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island.
So he remade Myst. Woo. Hoo.
There are important discussions to be had about the nature and state of the medium, but boiling them down into "games are guns/sex/juvenile, except for Blow" does nothing but stifle discussion and close minds.
There are online games who's learning curves are specifically designed to keep the kiddies away. They are either inordinately difficult to master, brutally impatient with failure, or both. That doesn't change their sense of artistry one single bit.
In online gaming, given that it is an interactive medium, not just a sit-back-and-gape medium, artistry can encompass more that just visual or auditory art. For instance, the elegance of an algorithm used to cover a certain aspect of the game's programming can be beautiful.
A perfectly crafted puzzle (think Portal or Portal 2) combined with a sublime game mechanic can reach a high artistic standard. Not only that, but simply placing "guns" into a game does not make it juvenile in the least.
Stick with crossword puzzles.
Video games are under your control and therefore do not give you feedback needed for interpersonal relatiopnships, a/k/a life.
"Artless" used to mean competent, simple, straightforward, without artifice or trickery. It was a compliment.
Now the hacks use it to mean "without art," dull, pedestrian, crude. Yuck.
Another word bites the dust.
A good game creates its own world.
That's where the art of it comes in.
The article was interesting but incredibly annoying. Typical attitude of many lit snobs who can't deal with genre, development of character, plot.
Getting good artists and writers for your game is critical. And some people cannot see the the genius in genre.
What is wrong with The Atlantic? Their stable of writers lacks diversity of thought, opinion and background? It is a tad less strident than THe Nation.
What is wrong with The Atlantic?!
What's ever been right about it?
Their article should've been about Charles Blow and his place in journalism.
Now that would've been a classic,...
"Art in advertising? Why would anyone do that after Warhol?"
-- David Kellogg ("Mad Men", 4:4, "The Rejected")
Oh - and I watched a "ridiculously insulting" movie last night starring Ben Affleck. But I didn't call it that because people going around, claiming to be insulted all the time, is pretty insulting. And boring. And you know what they say about boring.
Yeah - that.
Just don't do it,...
Crack- that movie may have set a record for anti-business cliches and sterotypes.
Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony with The Witness, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island.
So..... I guess he never heard of MYST?
I guess he is so young that he thinks every thought he has is 'brand new' when it is really just a rerun.
(let me try this again with the proper link and another cup of coffee.)
I completed Braid. It was certainly good and decent. And I'm looking forward to The Witness --- as I have been doing so for a few years now.
But is he specifically artistic in the world of gaming? Clearly not. Phil Fish, who made Fez, has made an artistic marvel. Some big budget titles, like the mentioned Bioshock are also artistic, not just in visuals but in the story of a Randian utopia that ultimately crashed and burned horribly. Braid's time control mechanic was certainly innovative and the story where (spoilers) you're actually the bad guy stalking the princess was a curveball in the medium where you being the villain is an extreme rarity.
A lot of indie game developers get laughably overrated and most of their output ends up being piss-poor, but highly regarded because a company like EA or Activision didn't publish it. I want to try The Witness, but don't see it being Braid level in terms of quality.
So..... I guess he never heard of MYST?
In his defense, Myst was truly terrible, with puzzles that were ridiculously illogical and a really clunky interface. It was a tech demo for CD-ROM, not a terribly well-made game.
This akin to book/movie reviewers sticking their noses up in the air toward anything popular in favor of things they think they should like--things they actually don't, but which will impress their friends and family if they say they do.
(Hell, this goes beyond books and movies, just listen to snobs like George Will put down all sports except baseball. Or food "experts" who favor weird crap over something simple.)
There are some crappy games, but there are some great games that require a lot of thinking and different strategies. The best games allow you to do vastly different approaches to the same situation. I suspect people like Blow and the writer of the article suck at those games and thus, those games are trite.
BTW, I agree with damikesc; MYST was a horrible game. So many of the puzzles weren't puzzles at all, but things you solved by stumbling across something else. Portal and Portal 2 had puzzles.
"Myst was truly terrible"
Yah-but.....it was made in 1994. (18 yrs ago). For the technology of the day the graphics were pretty nice. I agree the puzzles were pretty bad, disconnected and didn't compliment story line.
It doesn't say how old Blow is, but I'm guessing he was too young to be interested in PC (not political correctness but personal computer games) in the Myst like genera.
It would be nice to see a good game based on a single player puzzle type platform with 'pretty' graphics.
There are important discussions to be had about the nature and state of the medium, but boiling them down into "games are guns/sex/juvenile, except for Blow" does nothing but stifle discussion and close minds.
Exactly.
On-line gaming (MMORPG) is another animal all together. The interaction is not JUST between the player and the software/game as a shoot'em up: but often more dynamically between the players. The online 'economy' of such games is as real and dynamic as it is IRL situations.
The social dynamics of player reactions to unexpected happenings in game, such as the outbreak of blood disease in WoW, have been intensely studied. The event has been used as a study in pandemic behavior
*note: I have temporarily hung up my WoW hat since many of my characters were maxed....and I got bored. May come back later or look for something else.
but there are some great games that require a lot of thinking and different strategies. The best games allow you to do vastly different approaches to the same situation.
Agreed!!
This is really old with antiquated graphics, but the Baldur's Gate (based on dungeons and dragons rolling game play) series seemed to be in that vein. You can chose many different outcomes based on your party's composition and whether you chose to be a 'good' or an 'evil' character.
Portal and Portal 2 had puzzles.
Portal and Portal 2 had incredible puzzle design, a simple learning curve for a potentially complex never-before-tried game mechanic, pretty decent graphics, good sound, humor...plus there's cake at the end.
The social dynamics of player reactions to unexpected happenings in game, such as the outbreak of blood disease in WoW, have been intensely studied.
Eve Online's almost entirely-player-driven economy has been the topic of many economics dept studies and they are the only MMORPG with an economist on staff who puts out quarterly reports including commodity tracking. It's insanely complicated, but all the more fun for it.
I passed the Atlantic article around on Steam chat to my clan buddies. We had a good laugh.
Forbes has a good video game section, actually, but the Atlantic's earnest attempts to write about them are beyond parody.
Now, Braid is a good game. From what I hear (I don't have a PS3) Journey is as well. But the "art" BS that piles up about them is getting deep.
If you make a game, make a good game. People have been doing that since Space Invaders. That's all there is.
"..plus there's cake at the end"
[spoiler]
Um....the cake is a lie!
Bizarre that Journey and Flower aren't coming up more in those comments. I'd have thought those were the pre-eminent "games as art" examples, much moreso than Braid (which has that clunky atom-bomb thing sort of grafted on). Not that I've played any of these games, but those are the names I've heard most from the people who do.
AJ Lynch,
Crack- that movie may have set a record for anti-business cliches and stereotypes.
Yeah, it was almost as badly written as Mad Men, which is pretty hard to do:
MM holds it's plot lines together with the phrase, "Can I have a piece of your gum?"
that movie may have set a record for anti-business cliches and stereotypes
It would have to be pretty damned bad to top Avatar in that department. Depressingly, from that angle, Cameron has recently said he's not going to direct/write/produce any other projects for the foreseeable future. He is in the Avatar business and sees it going out to 4 movies. With the Avatar franchise, he thinks he can say way needs to be said about our world and wants needs to be done with it.
I played Impossible Mission, Zork (and its sequels), and Myst (and its sequels).
I also enjoy exterminating Nazis with extreme prejudice.
Scott:
Good point - Avatar was a nonstop lecture from PC liberals- it was so bad I half-expected they would give a Cameo to that old Indian with the teardrop in his eye.
Crack :
To me, Mad Med swings between great lines and then it jumps the shark. And that is all in one segment.
Yah-but.....it was made in 1994. (18 yrs ago). For the technology of the day the graphics were pretty nice. I agree the puzzles were pretty bad, disconnected and didn't compliment story line.
It was a nice tech demo. It showed off what CD-ROM had over floppy disks. It was just not very good (but most puzzle/adventure games of that era don't hold up terribly well).
It doesn't say how old Blow is, but I'm guessing he was too young to be interested in PC (not political correctness but personal computer games) in the Myst like genera.
I actually didn't play Myst until I got in the old 3D0 machine (which would've been 1994-5 period), but I have tried the PC version since then. Still bad. I assume Blow has at least tried it, but yes, if you didn't play it at the time, you have no prayer of liking it now.
That is why Shigeru Miyamoto might be the best designer who will ever live. Even 37 years later. Super Mario Bros can be played and enjoyed by new people. Zelda can be played and loved 36 years later. That is what great design does to you.
It would be nice to see a good game based on a single player puzzle type platform with 'pretty' graphics.
Ever try "Limbo"?
Now, Braid is a good game. From what I hear (I don't have a PS3) Journey is as well. But the "art" BS that piles up about them is getting deep.
Feel free to throw in Flow and Flower as well. Pretentious borefests. PS3 seems to be inordinately fond of "art" games. "Limbo", much as I liked it, is also held up as being art at the expense of being a diabolically clever puzzle platformer.
I played Impossible Mission, Zork (and its sequels), and Myst (and its sequels).
I also enjoy exterminating Nazis with extreme prejudice.
2010's insanely hugely selling Call of Duty Black Ops had Zork included as well...for no actual reason. Just for giggles.
Portal and Portal 2 had incredible puzzle design, a simple learning curve for a potentially complex never-before-tried game mechanic, pretty decent graphics, good sound, humor...plus there's cake at the end.
The Portal titles were handled about as well as a concept can be handled. Seeing what you did at the start as compared to the insanity you do at the end is a monument to great design (and Eric Wolpaw is one of the truly underrated writers in any medium out there). In fact, watching Portal makes the puzzle solving seem way more complex than it actually is, which is even better design.
Co-op was kinda meh in 2, but the single player stuff is inspired.
Mad Med swings between great lines and then it jumps the shark. And that is all in one segment.
Mad Men seems to be all about set design and costuming. They've never been able to hold me for longer than ten minutes. Game of Thrones, on the other hand...set design, costuming (duh) and very, very good acting to boot. With the exception of the Tyrell/Renly bullshit, they're doing a very good of job of realizing GRRM's master work.
I don't see much in the way of preaching in that one either.
Almost all video games are art, in my opinion.
They just aren't easily recognized as art, because normal people actually enjoy them and pay money for them. :)
As an inveterate (some would say compulsive) gamer, I have to admire Blow's approach. From System Shock to Medal of Honor to Half Life to Dead Space, I've been playing the same game for the last twenty years. Occasionally there is a happy deviation like the Portal games, but for the most part it's all running through a thinly-disguised tunnel shooting bad guys. Even the more imaginative RPG's like Fallout 3 or Skyrim devolve into trudging around finding stuff. With a medium that is capable of presenting almost any imaginable reality, it has just been a crying shame that games have done so little to take advantage of it. I look forward to The Witness. I hope it lives up to its promise.
Video games are under your control and therefore do not give you feedback needed for interpersonal relatiopnships, a/k/a life.
Holy non-sequitur, Batman!
(Also, are you aware that a staggeringly large number of video games these days actually involve significant or even dominant interaction with actual human beings?)
(Dust Bunny Queen said:
Um....the cake is a lie!
Nope! If you watch the final credit sequence, the existence of the cake is demonstrated.)
The article doesn't really convey accurately what makes Braid a great game. The graphics and music are very nice, but what really sets it apart is the original concept, the use of time manipulation as a way of solving puzzles in what appears, at first glance, to be a Mario-Bros-format game. The written story in the game I almost entirely skipped through, because the first few passages read like a creative writing project. Seems ridiculous to point to the written story as if that put it at a higher artistic level. The dialogue is Fallout 3 is far better written, and they don't give that the same level credit.
Braid is great and done in an artistic way, but Limbo is probably more so and came out at around the same time. Limbo is certainly more visually artistic. I also agree that how you judge artistic quality in a game shouldn't be done using the same criteria for movies, any more than you judge movies based on the criteria you use for novels. People used to make that mistake with movies; they admired them if they had a literary quality and didn't really get what made film great or unique.
I can't speak to the artistry of the algorithms, but I think the quality of the experience of exploring an open-ended world is one of those things that is an artistic accomplishment, and also totally unique to video games. That's what I like about Fallout 3, or maybe the early Silent Hill games.
I don't think I've ever played a game that was successful at being great storytelling, though. The best any of them can be is a great experience.
Also, there's something awfully sophomoric about calling a game that hasn't even come out yet the "Citizen Kane of video games."
I don't think I've ever played a game that was successful at being great storytelling, though. The best any of them can be is a great experience.
Eve Online is a perfect setting for storytelling in that the game itself is not linear. There is no beginning and there is no end. It is, as the developers proudly call it, a "sandbox". You get in and make of it what you will. I know guys that have played the game for years and never fired a single shot in anger, yet are industrial barons without equal. (hint...they hire mercs, ie groups of other players, to do the shooting for them).
Eve has spawned reems of professionally written fiction, at least two novels, and a ton of fan fiction. Most of it is in the form of backstory for ingame events/technology, etc, but it's pretty decent "hard" sci-fi.
As I was typing that up, one game did come to mind that managed to tell an excellent story. Homeworld. Homeworld 2 was okay, but the first one had an incredible story and executed it well.
I never understood why people were playing Myst when there were all those King's/Space/Police Quest games.
My video game playing ended with Deus Ex.
My video game playing ended with Deus Ex.
I never understood why people were playing Deus Ex when they could have been playing Tribes.
My video game playing ended with Deus Ex.
What a downer. I found Deus Ex to be very tedious.
Currently, the game I probably play the most is Company of Heroes. I tend to play strategic games defensively. This works well with Command & Conquer, but not so well with Company of Heroes, which tends to favor aggression.
Max Payne 3 is up next! (Then Far Cry 3 and the WoW expansion, or maybe the other way around.)
Currently, the game I probably play the most is Company of Heroes.
Battlefield 3 and Civilization V for me. Occasionally I'll hook up with Crimso for Eve Online.
Other than that, I probably should be writing.
I'm waiting for the price of Battlefield 3 to drop. It's stayed up there for a long time.
I never understood why people were playing Deus Ex when they could have been playing Tribes.
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/84.html
Couldn't have that kind of fun in Tribes.
Scott M,
Mad Men seems to be all about set design and costuming.
Interesting you should say that:
"What?" my friend asked, catching the perplexed look on my face.
"What do you like about this show?"
"The fashions are great."
"O.K., I'll start from there," I said.
That Howard Johnson's was stunning,...
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