Speaking to the adorably named
Press Pause to Reflect,
Jonathan Blow -- creator of
Braid -- had a few things to say about independent games, as well as the game industry in general. The remarks that most will probably focus on concern the debate over games as art. When asked what it will take for games to be considered works of art, Blow said, "All that needs to happen is for game developers to do more-serious work." He elaborated that currently "the work isn't there," adding that the industry, by and large, is about "pandering and infantilism." Assuming game designers can overcome that, said Blow, "We will find that there is an audience out there that takes us seriously."
Blow also discussed the methods of game storytelling -- taking a moment to defend the dated and often maligned use of text instead of cut-scenes -- and how services like
XBLA and
PSN are affecting the independent games business.
Finally, when asked about
his next game, Blow said that he currently has four games prototyped, though he has yet to decide which one will become his next project.
{ Jun 26th 2009 at 4:15PM } 
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
alienmastermind @ Jun 26th 2009 4:49PM
I'm calling it right now. Blow's next game 'Crawling Out Of My Own Ass'...
It's a quest against the clock against the backdrop of one pretentious numbnuts' ego devours his own head.
But it's really about the Tuskeegee Airmen.
xtremeholymuffin @ Jun 26th 2009 4:40PM
I don't even know how to reply to this. Gamers go on and on about how video games should be considered high art, but any time someone like Jonathan Blow comes along who treats games as a serious artistic medium they are labeled as "pretentious numbnuts"
Girugamuk (Moptimus Slimed) @ Jun 26th 2009 4:50PM
its because gamers dont really want games to be considered art, they want games to be accepted more. And they believe that by calling beating up a hooker a piece of art that all the naysayers will suddenly vanish.
Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ Jun 26th 2009 4:52PM
Well I do respect his point of view is just that Braid well it is pretty but the opinions about his game are overly exaggerated. I believe it can improve.
What I have never liked about Indie games is that they are always more expensive than games made by bigger studios and that have more development into them.Is like regular veggies against organic veggies. Why organic veggies are so damn expensive? if anything the lack of pesticides should make them cheaper (Is a joke) then again I guess we are supporting a small team but seriously if you pass over 1200p you lose me pal (Then again I bought Braid for 800p :P).
Now that can games be art, well movies can be art, comics can be art too is just that you make more money with mainstream, generic crap. Why do you think FPS is the most popular genre nowadays? Why do you think Twilight is a best seller compared to other books with a much better plot written by better authors? Crap sells[Okay more like crap with tons of publicity sells].
Ashitaka @ Jun 26th 2009 5:42PM
Well, you could have bought if for the price of 0€
http://thepiratebay.org/search/Braid/0/99/0
A game that only last 2 hours isn't worth that much money, even though its graphics and gameplay are nice.
Girugamuk (Moptimus Slimed) @ Jun 26th 2009 4:28PM
Games aren't art. Thats why things like Mario Galaxy, Killzone 2, and Viva Pinata can get such high ratings. If you take them as games, they are damn good. But if you look at them as art, they fall flat on their faces.
kvzuky @ Jun 26th 2009 4:35PM
So because games can entertain, and be successful at that goal they can't be art?
Well, I guess we should break the news to the movies that they can't be eat either.
Shmil @ Jun 26th 2009 4:35PM
ICO?
Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ Jun 26th 2009 4:39PM
Actually Killzone 2 credits used a fancy style that I have never seen anywhere else (perhaps REZ) and Viva Piñata graphics and music could be considered art but what it is or not art falls in the perspective of the viewer.
Impressionism started as a joke and today is much respected especially compared to modern art. Modern art sucks d*ck and it shouldn’t be called anything but pretentious garbage.
DaveMcRae the Haiku Artist @ Jun 26th 2009 4:43PM
Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Path, flow, Loco Roco, Patapon, are works of art as a whole.
But even other, more mainstream games are build upon a foundation of art. While the gameplay mechanics themselves may not be art, the way levels and characters are designed, is.
Artworks drawn by talented artists serves as guidance for lighting and modeling. All these are creative processes following the rules of composition and design. The musicians who compose play theme songs and background music for game are artists, in some cases those are real orchestras.
Artistic work is involved in nearly every step of the creation of a video game.
Girugamuk (Moptimus Slimed) @ Jun 26th 2009 4:54PM
yes art is involved, but the final product is not necessarily art.
I can take the Mona Lisa and draw a big bushy mustache on her and even though it uses art, what I did is not art.
Shmil @ Jun 26th 2009 4:59PM
I dunno I'd pay for a Mona Lisa painting with a big bushy mustache, I find it funny. Art is defined by the viewer not the subject matter. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just a pretentious douchebag.
mr nimblewick @ Jun 26th 2009 5:00PM
Before I would consider a game to be art I would want it to have some sort of deeper meaning than just shooting things and maybe a character dies. I don't consider most movies to be art, either.
Just having a few graphic artists working on something doesn't make it art.
cuteSAVAGE @ Jun 26th 2009 5:04PM
As far as I'm concerned, if you create something with the intention of creating art... You are making art. Your mustachioed Mona Lisa is art, as long as that's what you'd like it to be.
Not only is a game like Shadow of the Colossus art, but it is the amalgamation of all of the artistic direction poured into the game. From the obvious audio/visual components, the interactivity, and the way everything ties together - It's all art. All games are art. Unfortunately, only a few are generally described as such. Fewer still would even be elevated to "high art" status.
DaveMcRae the Haiku Artist @ Jun 26th 2009 5:07PM
You said it best Cute Savage.
Girugamuk (Moptimus Slimed) @ Jun 26th 2009 5:28PM
also, I never said games CANT be art: I said games as a whole aren't art. There will be exceptions to the rule from time to time * begrudgingly points out the SaGa series* but if you take a look at most games from an artistic standpoint, they don't work. Killzone 2 has solid gameplay, but it has little depth or meaning other than "World War II in space". As a game it works perfectly, as art it fails miserably.
The same works if you look at "art games" from a game standpoint. Pyschonauts has all the depth and hidden meanings and shit in the world, but the gameplay is absolute shit. Same with the SaGa series, I'm sure Kawazu puts all this depth and story telling into the games, but the gameplay is just soooooo bad and frustrating that Im sure most people never found it.
What a lot of people fail to do is find some sort of middle ground, somewhere in-between satisfying their own egos and making something that the average joe can enjoy without thinking too much. I think Daniel Benmergui has done a great job of that in his games.
http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php?lang=en
Mr Khan @ Jun 26th 2009 5:33PM
Games are art in their own way. When a game tries to be "arty," it just generally winds up being hideously pretentious (but a lot of "arty" stuff is), without making full advantage of its medium
DaveMcRae the Haiku Artist @ Jun 26th 2009 5:37PM
SaGa Frontier's graphics really were art. Whatever happened to the series.
LordToastington @ Jun 26th 2009 10:05PM
Okami?
Phylicus @ Jun 27th 2009 11:08AM
All games are art. But not all games are works of art.
Rhamsey @ Jun 26th 2009 4:30PM
I loved braid, but as something different and fun to do, and am looking forward to his second game, but if all games were like that, im pretty sure it would get boring really quickly.
butaneko @ Jun 26th 2009 4:33PM
Stop calling yourself Jonathan Blow and I'll start listening to your opinions.
Jrinswand @ Jun 26th 2009 7:38PM
But that is his name...
Roto13 @ Jun 26th 2009 8:24PM
Nice to see the irrational hatred for Jonathan Blow is still around.
Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ Jun 26th 2009 4:34PM
The best aspect of Braid was indeed its presentation and music but he needs to work on the gameplay. Braid was too easy and it wasn't very satisfactory I only had problems with 3 situations in the game and all of them require a solution that was actually hidden.
There is a difference between thinking outside the box to solve a puzzle and hiding elements from the player that are never mentioned until a late point (Seriously how I was supposed to know the “Goombas” could bounce on the head of the shadow clone?)
I don’t think he should remove these situations though, I think the sequel needs more of them but I would like some subtle hints.Yeah is fun to explore every posible alternative but not depend on it.
xtremeholymuffin @ Jun 26th 2009 4:41PM
I can't say I remember ever having to do that.....
Ashitaka @ Jun 26th 2009 5:25PM
It was this puzzle where you had to head a goomba to make it go someplace. But I think it was only necessary to catch a star
I'd have liked some subtle hints about stars too, I didn't even bother trying to figure out where they were.
Leobebes (BDF: Braid Defence Force) @ Jun 26th 2009 5:44PM
Manly,
I thought it was hard enough. If it was any harder then I would probably have given up or checked out gamefaq's. Sorry the game wasn't hard enough for your deified gray matter.
alienmastermind @ Jun 26th 2009 5:01PM
Here's the thing, man. I want the games that feature beautifully crafted landscapes, the actual craft and art of making games respected. I want the games' mechanics and graphics noticed for the artistry that goes into that. The packaging of the game can even be artistic.
Not all games, of course, but many games strive to entertain and motivate.
But I don't think it's this guy's job to talk down to people who have this as one of their hobbies. Or hard working people who make creating games their career, to tell them that they're not serious about what they do.
I also, and you can disagree if you want, don't think it's Blow's job to pretend as if Braid is the greatest thing to come along since sliced bread, because there are hundreds if not thousands of folks on the web more than willing to call his game 'extremely deep'. It's fashionable now to ask this guy what his opinion is, and believe me, I've known guys like Blow most of my life, and nothing they love more than giving their opinion on things like art.
I for one see that the emperor has no clothes. His game was good, but because he left out things like a real plot, and had the purplest prose this side of a pre-graduate Creative Writing course, people who don't critically think about these things equate that to 'art'. And, they're completely right, to their tastes. His game was lacking a lot of the things that compel me to want to play it more than once.
I think that if you put Braid up against Super Mario Brothers 3, in terms of gameplay...it's a loss. I probably won't play Braid beginning to end again. There's nothing about it that goes beyond 'Blinx' to me, really, and isn't as fun as reading an actual book.
If you pretend hard enough, I suppose, there's a story there....something about nukes, right? Guess what? An editor of mine said, when you write like that, it means you DON'T HAVE A STORY. You leave it up to the audience to decide what it was about. Especially, if afterward, you're asked 'What's it all about?' and don't...or can't...say...Then there probably wasn't much there to begin with.
You like stuff like that? Or do you say you like stuff like that to feel like you're smart? Let me let you in on something: You're smart. The fact that you had that needling little feeling when playing 'Braid' that said 'Wow...what am I missing?' says that your brain is working just fine.
It's the reason why they haven't released 'What Is It?' on DVD. Because it's not entertaining to people who don't pretend to be entertained by 'art' in that mode. And the artist in that case (George McFly) doesn't want his movie to be sullied by money, and enterprise, and all the things we have in what we like to call 'society'.
Sorry, I suppose I'm the only one offended the way he shits on people in the industry now that he's the flavor of the month.
Put out another game, Blow. Let's see your hand. Or, you're all talk.
Ashitaka @ Jun 26th 2009 5:35PM
Wow man, I completely agree with you...
Simply put, Braid just doesn't have a story and I hate how many people say that it's deep. No it's not, since the story was lacking, it's obvious that you can invent whatever you want to.
Blank-Mage @ Jun 26th 2009 5:47PM
I never was a fan of "open-to-interpretation" movies/literature. If it was up to me to decide what it was about then why did I bother playing/reading it to begin with? I could have written a work of my own and felt productive.
Alex @ Jun 26th 2009 6:40PM
"I also, and you can disagree if you want, don't think it's Blow's job to pretend as if Braid is the greatest thing to come along since sliced bread"
Hehehe....
Blow's Job.
AtomicPlayboy @ Jun 26th 2009 8:34PM
Very well put. There are two annoying phenomena at work here:
1.) The open-to-interpretation school of storytelling. This is a cop-out when one cannot craft a compelling, coherent narrative. This is a creative deficiency, not an artistic form.
2.) The elevation of certain developers by the games media as spokesmen. We constantly hear about the emanations from gadflies like Blow, Dave Perry, and other nobodies through the games media, framed as though they were relevant critiques of the industry or of the gaming public. Why do we hear more from then than we do from the true luminaries? Because people like Jonathan Blow are actively trying to get attention, not because they've actually earned any notoriety. Would that the gaming press just ignored them.
xtremeholymuffin @ Jun 27th 2009 2:23AM
Open-to-interpretation storytelling is a creative deficiency?
Oh, and I suppose 2001: A Space Odyssey is an exercise in lazy film making and David Lynch is a hack, etc.
t_m @ Jun 27th 2009 4:07AM
But here's the thing, the qualities of his games have no bearing on the validity of his argument. He could make the worst games ever made, but he'd still be able to make valid points about games in general.
And he is right that a lot of games don't even attempt anything complex or deep, they just go for boobs or space marines or cliched retreads of genric stories.
Now there isn't really anything wrong with that as such, but when a few games DO attempt to step up and try something more, those are often the games that are awesome.
alienmastermind @ Jun 27th 2009 8:47AM
I would expect someone with an opinion to have some basis of knowledge to go by other than their feelings on the subject. The thing that really pisses me off is that this guy, with one game under his belt, has been given so much credence.
So, while his opinion that games (in general, here, he didn't say some or most, he just lumped all games together) are infantile and not serious, the soap box he's standing on to tell me this is 'Braid'...which is hyped, and people sure seem to like it, but doesn't make it 'art'.
If he were an honest broker of his opinion, he could say that his game was just a repackaged Super Mario Brothers with different game mechanics. Notice that his game is beyond impeachment whenever he opens his mouth about the gaming industry.
I think the guy's an obnoxious and pretentious dunce.
I can respect liking Braid, man. I can even respect the guy's opinion, if he'd just say 'This is my opinion' rather than pronouncing his ideas from a throne built out of Microsoft points and copies of Braid as if they were matters of fact and not discourse.
I have a new game that I'm selling.
It just LOOKS like Super Mario to STUPID people. SMART people will find that it's incredibly deep and justifies their belief that they're super intelligent and definitely NOT dorks just playing video games. Line up geniuses, and open those wallets, you don't want to be STUPID, do you?
:)
Ed @ Jun 26th 2009 5:04PM
Artistic legitimacy, the idea that there's an art establishment to aspire to, is fiction.
Sorry to break it to you guys.
bongoes @ Jun 26th 2009 5:20PM
I've always viewed video games as art. I agree with the idea that anything can be art. So yeah I agree with you. There is nothing for them to aspire too because anything can be art. Of course there is bad art too...
mr nimblewick @ Jun 26th 2009 5:28PM
Why are gamers so determined to have games be art?
Do you think it gives your pastime legitimacy if it's art? Like you can tell people you are really deep because you can appreciate the intricacies of Marcus Fenix?
I don't think video games have to justified like that. Games are games, and they have been played for fun since the dawn of time.
Now, I'm not saying they can't be art. Braid (from what I played of it) was grasping at it.
Mr Khan @ Jun 26th 2009 5:36PM
The conscious attempt to make games into art is misguided. Games will become art by going down their own path, not path pre-determined by the "artists" of other mediums
alienmastermind @ Jun 26th 2009 6:05PM
Fantastic post, man.
I 100% agree with you here.
Shmil @ Jun 26th 2009 6:21PM
I think that is the wisest thing posted on this thread. Kudos
alienmastermind @ Jun 26th 2009 6:14PM
It's insecurity, man.
I proudly tell people I play video games. When they ask why, I sit them down, give them the Wiimote and have them bowl a couple frames in WiiSports. Of course, this never happens. But I would, if someone asked me to justify my hobby, be able to talk about aspects that verge on artistry, and show them things that would make them understand why I like the pastime.
But what I wouldn't do is feel as though games, to be a justifiable expenditure of time, have to be 'art' in the way Blow describes it. It's a pastime, like any other, and many times it can transcend, but Braid (to me, at any rate) is a clear play to that crowd that pretends that they know better than everyone else what everyone should do with their time to be 'intelligent'.
Nor would I feel the need to justify my gaming hobby to anyone. Why bother? It's not my job to tell people how to spend their time, or convince them to spend their time doing what I do.
Insecurity. Get over that, and you'll get over the need to see games as art.
Rumor of Boz @ Jun 26th 2009 6:21PM
Games can definitely be art, and NOT just indie games either (sorry trendy indie hipsters). But like all things it is all in the beholder. Also am I the only one that did not care for braid and think it was WAY WAY over hyped. I mean It was cool..but not anything i would remember.
Douche Bigalow @ Jun 26th 2009 6:36PM
Good God, we're in an age of smug douchebaggery - pandering, self-centered jackasses browbeating everyone else with their slightly-above-average vocabulary, and everyone too wowed by the 5-dollar words to care that they're being insulted.
Hey, Jonathan Blow-Me, how many copies did your game sell, anyway? Yeah, thought so. That explains your pompous gas-bagging. If only we could all be like you, only caring about sales when not getting them supposedly reaffirms our awesomeness and 'higher artistic intent'.
CrossTheAtlantic @ Jun 28th 2009 9:53AM
According to what you are arguing, Michael Bay is the greatest director ever. High-five!
Oh, wait. You're wrong.
Alex @ Jun 26th 2009 6:38PM
Games which have more of a meaning than kill-everything-and-put-a-bit-of-a-story into-it, (Gears, Killzone, etc.) will always be put under scrutiny as computerised violence and glorified violence, but games that have a slightly deeper meaning, such as Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain, Half Life 2 (maybe), possibly even Far Cry 2 (yeah, it's fictional but the underlying theme is real)... These are the ones that will be seen eventually as art. They clearly have work put into both aspects of the game and show that they are trying to say something by it...
Only when the general public see past the 'games are corrupting my son's mind' thing that we are seeing a lot of lately.
Ashitaka @ Jun 26th 2009 6:55PM
I absolutely agree with you, but it's a shame that you forgot to mention Shadow of the Colossus :)
CrossTheAtlantic @ Jun 28th 2009 9:53AM
Let's be fair, we can only count the first 2/3 of Fahrenheit.
I was showing that game to my friend the first time I played through it, and I was all arguing about how engrossing the game was, how it had this unique storyline, and really tried to do a lot of different things with the medium. And then everything post-Roller Coaster mayhem came.
My argument went out the window so fast.
Agree with your post. I think those games show that we're on the brink of whatever "art" videogames could achieve. You simply have your "summer blockbuster" like games (Halo, Killzone 2, Gears, etc) where the storyline is simply an excuse to blow shit up. And that's awesome. But then you have games that try to do a little more with the medium. I don't think it's unfair to call the industry infantile because, at this point, it is. We are just now at the point where developers can really extend the boundaries of how we interact with a digital world.
Or we can just be content to t-bag each other into oblivion cause you know what? I have other forms of art to sustain me if need be.
t_m @ Jun 27th 2009 6:47AM
"art" is an impossible topic. But making games more respected definitely needs game developers and publishers to have a little more faith in their audience.
While it may have been true for a long time that most gamers were teenage boys in their bedroom (and many developers too), most of us have grown up.
I think we can take it if the developers decide to try some stories that are a little deeper, or decide to give us slightly more complex situations, relationships and topics.
It'd be nice if a game like mirror's edge didn't get noticed partly just because it had a realistic lead female that wasn't wearing underwear. Or if more games (but not all, of course) felt grown up.