Jonathan Blow: Video Games and the Human Condition

September 27, 2010

Source: http://edtech.rice.edu/www/?option=co...

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

[paul gay]

...right?

[KanDuDor]

Romanticism rises again

[81gamer81]

There are gonna be lawsuits similar to the ones the tobacco industry faced. know that when you exploit human psychology (too much)

[DownUFO]

he hates the old Bioshocks, i doubt he'd like Infinite. if you listen to what he values in gameplay, it makes sense. Infinite is kind of a slaughterfest where you absorb 100 bullets and tear someone else apart with 3 bullets.

[TOGSugarfoot]

The word he used was "aural". 8)

[retnuHDJ]

"Humans beings like visual and oral stimulation" - Jonathan Blow

Is there irony is his surname here? I would like to think so.

Anyways, very interesting and thought provoking presentation. Worth watching!

[Jack Ribar]

I want to see his opinion on Bioshock Infinite. It's themes and story are reminiscent of an indie game, but the budget certainly makes it AAA. 

[Jeel Patel]

what the f****? every means of entertainment does this but it is upto u how u utilise them..

[Jacob Williams]

wrong.

[LemonCrushMusic]

So? Doesn't mean you can't know about them. Thing about art is, it speaks to everyone in different ways, and therefore can be discussed whether you've created art in a medium or not.