Jonathan Blow: Video Games and the Human Condition

September 27, 2010

Source: http://edtech.rice.edu/www/?option=com_iwebcast&task=webcast&action=d...

This is not my video, it belongs to Rice Digital Media Services.

http://the-witness.net/news/?p=650

Jonathan Blow's websites:
http://number-none.com/blow/
http://www.braid-game.com/
http://the-witness.net/
Description:

Video games have evolved tremendously over the past few decades; they're much more entertaining than they used to be. That is not by accident; we, the community of game designers, have been continuously refining our techniques. The most common way we do this is by testing out our games on you, the players, and optimizing for the "best" result (where "best" is defined by us). As this process is ongoing, what kind of relationship exists between the designer and the player? Is it artist/audience, experimenter/subject, entrepreneur/customer, or tycoon/resource? Invariably it's some admixture of these things, the particular ratios for a given game being chosen by its designers (usually without awareness that a decision is being made). Today, due to the way the Internet is widely used, and because game designers are becoming more serious about certain aspects of their craft, the iteration time of this game design optimization process is shorter than ever before: designers can observe their players much more thoroughly, and more quickly, than they ever have in the past. At some point a quantitative change becomes a qualitative one: the result of all this competency may be heavily destructive. Some aspects of the current notion of "good game design" may in fact be very bad, or at least indefensible, from an ethical standpoint. Today's "better" video games spend a great deal of effort to undermine defenses that took you tens of millennia to evolve. They tend to be successful at this. As designers keep evolving their craft and gain greater analytical power, what will happen?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• jon
• blow
• jonathan
• videogames
• video
• games
• design
• human
• condition
• braid
• the witness
• 2010
• lecture
• talk
• indie
• B.F. Skinner
• independent
• skinner
• manipulative
• behaviorism
• statistics
• optimization
• respect
• player
• objectivity
• subjectivity

[InterstellarTortoise]

Extremely thought provoking. Thank you so much for making this public.

[rubbermuck]

@InterstellarTortoise I uploaded 5 of his lectures to this channel now. The ones I would recommend the most are titled "Conflicts in Design" and "Design Reboot".

[OverlordJohnEternal]

would love to have a backup of this posted, just in case it gets pulled ^_^

[rubbermuck]

@OverlordJohnEternal You can download the full video at the link I provided.

[MsBickle76]

wicked! thanks for the upload. i was about to do it myself, but i didn't want to get sued by my future university.... :c

[rubbermuck]

@MsBickle76 yeah I figured if they didn't want it on youtube, they would tell me or give me a cease and desist or something. I didn't edit it, so their logos and stuff is included, advertising for them.

[azeroISAHERO]

0:13:47 did he just say meow?

[SuperBlackJesus321]

I loved John's speech on systems thinking and games at GDC, but here i disagree with a lot of what he said, especially about wasting your time on temporary rich states of experience.

When he says our goal is to evolve. We evolve to what? Too look forward to the next stage of evolution? That's kind of lame if you ask me. We don't live to gather ideas and money, we live for experience. Ideas and money are essential tools, but not our sole purpose for living.

[zeldamasterX]

I'm glad i wasn't the only one thinking that farmville is evil :)

[grimcruzh]

Enjoyed this info a lot!

[gamegloss]

This was really interesting but I couldn't help but cringe every time he said, "right?". After playing Braid I was expecting Jonathan Blow to be an incredible sharp, charismatic, and eloquent person. I understand that he's just very nervous, but it's still unbearably irritating.

[MsBickle76]

1:09:21

The Witness is about the Russian space program. They put you in a man made island to test you and teach you and prepare you to go to space!

[ProgressiveForest]

Jonathan Blow is not only an excellent game designer, but also a very insightful person. Kudos.

[Pedakin]

"Gears of war right, Has like a lot of critical umm acclaim right? But umm its not good right? Right. Because its a game that makes you think its about gears, But its about humanity woah humanity, So if you showed your mom this game and said it was about gears she would tell you to go outside and make friends an she would be right".

[VolcanicPenguin]

I was impressed!

[keithburgun]

Jonathan Braid: His sentences start with "so", end with "right?", and the rest is the howling of the wind.

[gamegloss]

@Decroux3000 That´s a very marginal perspective to take on the subject of DLC. While it is undeniable that some developers use DLC in cheap exploitative ways, there are many cases where it has worked perfectly ( Fallout 3 and Borderlands come to mind ).

DLC is only parasitic if the original content is lacking to the degree that it actually needs additional content to make it worthwhile playing, and you are charged for it.

Don´t blame the tools, blame the workman.