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Games and the Human Condition: A Jonathan Blow lecture.
- Thread starter robor
- Start date
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
I think the line there can be a matter of angles and/or perspectives, to keep the discussion vague. :lolRufus said:
EternalGamer
Banned
I am back after listening to the whole lecture. It is brilliant. Especially the part about the makers of Farmville playing a deeper more interesting "Farmville" with their own players.
Also loved the "Click the Cow" game as an example of how it isn't hyperbole. That game is hilarious.
Also loved the "Click the Cow" game as an example of how it isn't hyperbole. That game is hilarious.
FieryBalrog
Member
EternalGamer said:
Thank Christ for the anti-intellectual movement in the US, given that I find (from personal experience and broader reading) the intellectual scene here to be pretentious and self-obsessed.
Fields like anthropology, sociology, women's studies, political science and the like have become breeding grounds for foolishness and the infection has only spread outwards from there. Our intellectuals are largely vapid rent-seeking mediocrities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Probably the funniest unmasking of the naked emperor that is modern leftist philosophy.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Yeah, he's definitely confident and deliberately challenging with his ideas.OuterWorldVoice said:
Which is something I respect, because I find myself doing that sometimes and its good to know there are other people swinging around like monkeys pulling on the tails and ears of others trying to get a reaction. :lol
edit@Balrog: The anti-intellectual movement is not what you seem to think it is when most people use the term. :lol
FieryBalrog said:
Perpetrating a hoax on the "Liberal Arts" movement with faux liberal art seems a bit redundant and pretty childish. "Liberal Arts" as been self-defined as a woolly waste of time for about fifty years. I don't understand what he achieved other than smug self-satisfaction. But if anti-intellectualism is your perceived tool for improving intellectual conversation then I think you're barking up the wrong tree. You might as well use flames as a fire retardant.
And at least leftists have a philosophy that isn't derived from quarterly results and fragments of Atlas Shrugged. The right has become intellectually bankrupt to the point of gaping astonishment.
faceless007
Member
FieryBalrog said:
I'll take pretentious and self-obsessed bullshit over people who actively believe ignorance is a virtue any day. The former will, occasionally, have something interesting to say. The latter never, ever will.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
So you guys don't like Blow when he is challenging the game designers of today to respect their player population and not purposefully manipulate you for self-gain?
That reaks of cognitive dissonance.
That reaks of cognitive dissonance.
BobsRevenge said:
It ignores the fact that Pong is even fun in single player. Most of the arguments about this stuff have to more to do with narrative and story rather than game mechanics. Even Braid, which is excellent, is effectively identical to Pac-Land for physics and Blinx the Time Sweeper for the gameplay twist mechanic.
It's still an interesting conversation but story is a lubricant for game mechanics, not an essential. One can exist successfully without the other.
Braid manipulates the player for self-gain too - presumably that gain is in art, or ego or pride of execution but it's certainly not an egoless process.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
I meant manipulate the player for the gain of the people who are making money off of the manipulation, rather than being honest and forthcoming and hoping people will enjoy what you have to offer.OuterWorldVoice said:
I guess I'll say something about what I liked about the previous lectures of him I listened to or watched, since the download for the mp4 of this lecture is so god-damned slow.
The first one that caught my interest was one where it was him detailing his general design process and the process in particular for braid. Lots of talk about making loads of prototypes and being very iterative in design. Which is pretty much the standard approach you find a lot of people advocating, but I still found it interesting to hear him detail how he got value out of the prototyping process.
The other point I found really interesting I've heard him make in a lecture is that about intrinsic versus extrinsic value. Don't quite remember if that was the terminology he used and I do seem to remember that he said there was previously better established terminology than his. But the distinction between games where the activity is enjoyable or satisfying in itself and games that have activities where the game needs to add some external reinforcement to keep the player engaging in the game was interesting to me. Again, don't think he came up with it, but I found it a useful distinction to frame thinking about the activities game designers try to have players engage in.
So I guess I'm curious to see if he has anything interesting to add to the last point in particular in this lecture.
As for an academic approach being mostly pretentious, I dunno... I kind of dislike the word pretentious as criticism instead of a more direct detailing of what someone is failing at. But I absolutely think there is a lot to say about games and interactive media. So much in fact that it seems to me that a lot of games academia is stuck in just defining a vocabulary that even allows us to approach the vast topic of interactive systems and player interaction and engagement and all that. Semantic discussions can be kind of boring, but I think it's still a useful pursuit.
The first one that caught my interest was one where it was him detailing his general design process and the process in particular for braid. Lots of talk about making loads of prototypes and being very iterative in design. Which is pretty much the standard approach you find a lot of people advocating, but I still found it interesting to hear him detail how he got value out of the prototyping process.
The other point I found really interesting I've heard him make in a lecture is that about intrinsic versus extrinsic value. Don't quite remember if that was the terminology he used and I do seem to remember that he said there was previously better established terminology than his. But the distinction between games where the activity is enjoyable or satisfying in itself and games that have activities where the game needs to add some external reinforcement to keep the player engaging in the game was interesting to me. Again, don't think he came up with it, but I found it a useful distinction to frame thinking about the activities game designers try to have players engage in.
So I guess I'm curious to see if he has anything interesting to add to the last point in particular in this lecture.
As for an academic approach being mostly pretentious, I dunno... I kind of dislike the word pretentious as criticism instead of a more direct detailing of what someone is failing at. But I absolutely think there is a lot to say about games and interactive media. So much in fact that it seems to me that a lot of games academia is stuck in just defining a vocabulary that even allows us to approach the vast topic of interactive systems and player interaction and engagement and all that. Semantic discussions can be kind of boring, but I think it's still a useful pursuit.
cooljeanius
Member
I don't think political science deserves to be lumped in with the rest of those there, after taking a methodology class for it, it's a lot more rigorous than say anthropology, which I'll agree is filled with a lot of bullshit. Political science at least uses the scientific method, while none of the rest really do. Also, I don't think Sokal was really being anti-intellectual. If anything, he wanted more intellectual rigor in the liberal arts, not less. I'd liken it to a philosopher-sophist distinction. A lot of times when people hate on intellectuals, they're really hating on sophistry and they just can't tell the difference.FieryBalrog said:
SonOfABeep
Banned
There's room for Blow's social wankery he just shouldn't ever expect to hit mainstream success by focusing on what is essentially not being asked for in videogames.
If he wants to make art films go make one.
I think games are pretty well okay the way they are, business problems and layoffs aside.
If he wants to make art films go make one.
I think games are pretty well okay the way they are, business problems and layoffs aside.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
Blow is more interesting to listen to than 99.9% of all other game designers.
EternalGamer
Banned
FieryBalrog said:
Sokal is someone who champions intellectual value due to it's cultural potency. He IS part of a Modern leftist movement responding to another strand of thought. Which shows two things:
1. Painting intellectuals with a broad brush as if they are all the same is foolish. Marxist and feminists are often as much opposed to post-modernism as right wing conservatives. They are not all the same or even close.
2. What your statement boils down to is "I define intellectuals have anyone having different political beliefs than I currently hold so I am against intellectuals." I know it is convenient to lump everyone you disagree with into one big category called "the academic left" but there are many different viewpoints there, often contending with one another. They are not all on the same page. Do they all offer some sort of cultural critique? Yes, but that alone isn't enough to lump them all together.
SonOfABeep
Banned
Is it okay just to reply that the dude annoys me and I would likely choose not to spend time around people like him?
lol)
OfWhiteSkinOnRedLeather
Member
You would be wrong. The guys from Polytron are gaming hipsters.Sqorgar said:
ProfessorLobo
Banned
It's threads like these that make me glad that generally GAF doesn't matter.
CompositeMolar
Member
The older I get the more I hate how manipulative games can be and I'm glad some designers give a shit enough to at least take a stance towards it being a problem instead of just sweeping it under the rug of "it's fun".
Now, would I play Braid over Diablo3? :lol
Now, would I play Braid over Diablo3? :lol
charlequin
Banned
Kaijima said:
99% of authors of novels, plays, or movies still can't write a tragedy as tragic, comedy as comedic, or romance as romantic as William Shakespeare, either.
DaBuddaDa said:
Miyamoto doesn't give lectures like this because he's not actually that great at communicating his own design process. Any field of creative endeavor, whether art or craft, benefits immeasurably from having its practitioners (both masters and journeymen) teach others what they've learned. The idea that you can tell that someone's opinion is worthless on a topic because they're giving lectures about it is nuts.
FieryBalrog said:
Oh dear Lord.
The isolation (and attendant inbreeding and loss of perspective) that does, quite legitimately, affect many subsections of the "intellectual world" is a direct result of anti-intellectualism driving a wedge between academia and the broader culture that could otherwise police its excesses.
I don't think you understand. I love gaming, warts and all. I don't just love it when it is at its highest peaks. I love it when it is at it's lowest low. Though I consider something like Passage to be a terrible game, the fact that it exists and is what it is makes gaming as a whole better. Because gaming is something both noble and ignoble, humble and arrogant, ephemeral, yet permanent. I don't need someone to reaffirm my passion for video games because there is nothing that video games can do that would diminish my unconditional love and respect for the medium.Rufus said:
Anybody worth listening to on the subject of video games isn't going to be spending every second telling you what is wrong with the medium. They are going to be telling you what is right. After all, how can we know whether something is wrong or not if we don't have a well considered model for it at its absolute best?
Craft is not mutually exclusive from art. They are different things, sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. In fact, very often, people use a definition of artist which describes a master craftsman, simply more capable than his peers. But of course, if what you create is simply workmanlike, it's just a craft. But there is art within craft, just as there is craft within art.Rufus said:
I think it is a mistake to think about games only in what value they possess. I think one naturally take the nature of the medium into account when judging the worthiness of whether it is art or not.BobsRevenge said:
Most of the "art games" out there are rarely very good games, if they are games AT ALL. Instead, they use the same manipulative techniques of other mediums in order to appeal to that same sense of artistic achievement. Passage, for example, tries to draw a deep parallel between the purpose of the game and some sort of subtext (that needs to be explained to you before you understand it). This, however, misses the point that games run on a completely different metaphorical engine. The gameplay doesn't inform the metaphor, the metaphor informs the gameplay. So Passage gives up, even reverses, the very nature of gaming in order to... what? Make a point about the nature of gaming? It just does it very, very poorly.
It's like a high school student's film project on the bleakness of existence using stop motion LEGOs. It's the wrong medium to deliver that message effectively and it doesn't make LEGOs into art. LEGOs are art, but their art lies somewhere else.
To truly understand the nature of games as art, we must look at what are essentially the time tested classics of the medium. If we can not find what makes something like Tetris such a brilliant example of gaming, then we certainly aren't going to find the virtues in a extravagant multimedia, glorified choose-your-own-adventure game like Heavy Rain. Any definition of games as art which does not include Super Mario Bros or Pac-Man isn't the right one.
stryker1138
Member
Hey, that's the room where I almost failed orgo! How did I not hear about this lecture?
Anyway, Blow is definitely one of those people I hugely prefer to read, rather than listen to. I agree he doesn't have the most affable personality or the most engaging public speaking skills, but the fact that he shares deep thoughts about games at all is kind of unusual in this unnecessarily secretive industry. Hey may not have the largest corpus of work at this point in his career, but idealists and contemplative thinkers are the people that elevate media to new levels of expression. A decade from now, I predict Blow will sit at the same GDC table as the Will Wrights and Sid Meiers of the time.
Anyway, Blow is definitely one of those people I hugely prefer to read, rather than listen to. I agree he doesn't have the most affable personality or the most engaging public speaking skills, but the fact that he shares deep thoughts about games at all is kind of unusual in this unnecessarily secretive industry. Hey may not have the largest corpus of work at this point in his career, but idealists and contemplative thinkers are the people that elevate media to new levels of expression. A decade from now, I predict Blow will sit at the same GDC table as the Will Wrights and Sid Meiers of the time.
So I finished watching the lecture. Not that much new stuff I guess if you've heard him talk before and a fair amount of general obvious stuff that he needed for context before he got to his actual points. Rather than intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, he now does seem to go way harder on the manipulative versus non-manipulative distinction as the thing that's important. The stuff about something voluntary being less important than not being manipulative was a bit protracted, but an ok counter to the general argument that since players play these things voluntary the design motivation of the game makers doesn't matter.
I did think it was interesting how he grouped everything in the 'good game design' toolbox in the manipulative section. I get his argument about the skinner box and that if you strip a lot of the extra reinforcement systems out you are often left with not very engaging games. But I'm not convinced everything he mentioned in that good gamedesign toolbox necessarily fits in that skinner box category and he didn't spend a huge amount of time on that. E.g. the big one is play testing, which I think is mostly a good thing. I'm not talking about focus testing, but rather if you use play testing to figure out if your intended effect of a piece of content is actually doing what you expect it to do.
He admitted that the way he defined the goal for what you actually should do was super nebulous, but still would've liked to hear more about that. I've heard him say in a past talk that a large part of that equation for him is to have experience that are rewarding in and off themselves rather than something where the game has give you a reward in some other way. He didn't really explore that side of things too much here.
Also, as an aside, it kinda made me laugh that one of the few games the guy who comes across as pretentious to some people cites in this particular lecture as something he got really invested in is Counterstrike of all things.
I did think it was interesting how he grouped everything in the 'good game design' toolbox in the manipulative section. I get his argument about the skinner box and that if you strip a lot of the extra reinforcement systems out you are often left with not very engaging games. But I'm not convinced everything he mentioned in that good gamedesign toolbox necessarily fits in that skinner box category and he didn't spend a huge amount of time on that. E.g. the big one is play testing, which I think is mostly a good thing. I'm not talking about focus testing, but rather if you use play testing to figure out if your intended effect of a piece of content is actually doing what you expect it to do.
He admitted that the way he defined the goal for what you actually should do was super nebulous, but still would've liked to hear more about that. I've heard him say in a past talk that a large part of that equation for him is to have experience that are rewarding in and off themselves rather than something where the game has give you a reward in some other way. He didn't really explore that side of things too much here.
Also, as an aside, it kinda made me laugh that one of the few games the guy who comes across as pretentious to some people cites in this particular lecture as something he got really invested in is Counterstrike of all things.
The Take Out Bandit
Member
Yes, I'm having Shantae and she is fun Johnny boy. 
Interesting discussion, and he would fit in with some of the dandy fufu lads around here.
Interesting discussion, and he would fit in with some of the dandy fufu lads around here.
LocoMrPollock
Banned
Must've sucked having that name growing up.
EternalGamer
Banned
HK-47 said:
He gives a pretty good argument in this clip if someone would give him a chance. For him, it seems that games that are designed simply to get the player to continue playing for the sake of consumption itself (whether to get them to purchase the game, buy add on content or create a viral marketing space for the game) are games whose sole purpose he is suspicious of. He gives the analogy of someone who falls prey to a con wherein someone is promised something of value such as watch in trade for $100 or a ponzi scheme. The person things the investment they are making has value, but it turns out that that it doesn't really have any value to offer.
If we dislike people who steal money under the false pretense of a return on it, why should we not also have a problem with people who steal time with the false pretense of getting something worthwhile in return? We are investing our time in games in the same way we invest money, with the hopes of getting something more valuable than that time in exchange. Of course "worthwhile" is somewhat subjective and Blow never denies as much. But certainly a game that doesn't even attempt to offer to do anything more than a cold calculating attempt to use the most efficient way to get the player to keep clicking, keep being a viral marketer for itself on Facebook, is not one that is even presenting the pretense of value. As Blow points out, even the makers of games like "Click the Cow" or "Farmville" wouldn't want to play those games. The game they are playing, the one of trying to "farm" the players in the most efficient manner is much more interesting.
Between this sort of game and a game that is attempting to communicate a profound message that will change the way you look at life or what it means to be human, there is a whole range that most games fall within. But what Blow is concerned about is not making games that are solely about instituting addictive mechanisms that show little respect for the player as a human being. And instead just attempts to prey on them by inducing Pavlovian conditioning.
I thought it was a pretty excellent presentation but discussing it isn't going to get anyone who already dislikes him to give it a second look, so what is the point?
EternalGamer
Banned
HK-47 said:
I am not sure on what basis you are coming to that conclusion, but maybe you find me pretentious. In general, I find that people use that term when they mean "You are just trying to show off." But the truth is, unless you know the person intimately, you can't tell whether they are just trying to "show off."
For example, I am working on a PhD in literature and I tend to hang out with a lot of people who discuss literature and philosophy all the time. We frequently get in arguments about it at bars. I'm sure to the on looker who doesn't know us, they would think we are "showing off" because of the level of vocabulary in our discourse. But sophisticated vocabulary for those with an intimate knowledge of it is merely a shorthand. We use these words because we know them and they are the most efficient way to communicate with others who know them too. I personally saw nothing in the vocabulary or language in Braid that I felt was trying to "show off." But that is probably because there are no words that were unfamiliar to me. Someone who has less experience with those same words might conclude that, because they have never seen them before or have rarely encountered them, Blow must be using them to show off.
Having said that, I am not the biggest fan of the little paragraphs of text before the levels in Braid. But it isn't because I felt Blow was trying to show off with them. It is because I think they were sloppily integrated and too disconnected from the gameplay's narrative.
I think it is also important to remember that in these presentations, Blow is talking to college audiences. I am pretty sure he wouldn't talk about games the same way to a group of people outside of Gamestop.
GhaleonQ
Member
Number of people with "this is depressing"-like comments who subsequently contributed something interesting: __?
EternalGamer, I find it hard to believe that your writing professors wouldn't decimate Blow's faux-impressionistic writing, the trite "straightforward" meaning of the story, and the vagueness that Blow passes off as mysteriousness. What's at least 1 more change you would make to Braid's writing?
EternalGamer, I find it hard to believe that your writing professors wouldn't decimate Blow's faux-impressionistic writing, the trite "straightforward" meaning of the story, and the vagueness that Blow passes off as mysteriousness. What's at least 1 more change you would make to Braid's writing?
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Did anyone actually comment on the contents of the lecture yet?Kimosabae said:
I haven't had a chance to watch the lecture yet but my motivation dwindles by the post. Going by the responses, I have a lot I could say on the (tangential) subject - but what's the point? Who wants to put the effort into articulating any thoughts founded on institutions of knowledge deemed worthless and have them succinctly dismissed as "pretentious"?
EternalGamer
Banned
GhaleonQ said:
Well, they (and I) would challenge anyone who throws around labels to back them, yes. So what exactly are you calling "faux-impressionistic"? It has been a long time since I played Braid, though, so I don't remember the language that well. Even if it is over-written, though, I don't think that is enough to say the whole game is "pretentious" simply because what amounts to a page and half of text is not so great. The intelligence is in the game design itself and I think in that regard, it earns respect and it earns what it demands of the player.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
I was trying to not even evoke the concept of art in that post, iirc. I believe the argument, in the collective sense, should be beyond that point by now. It is a given, so isn't important to talk about. However, what someone finds valuable within the artistic medium is subjective. If someone values a story more than gameplay in their videogames, then Heavy Rain would be more valuable to them than SMB. And naturally that goes both... and all, ways, I suppose.Sqorgar said:
I think assigning more value to certain aspects of the medium based on what one believes to be a fundamental thing where some kind of objective point can be found on the matter is sort of archaic thinking.
robor
Member
Sqorgar said:
I disagree with this entirely.
Let's look at the definitions of the word "art" shall we?
1.
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
2.
the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection.
3.
a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.
4.
the fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture: art and architecture.
5.
any field using the skills or techniques of art: advertising art; industrial art.
6.
(in printed matter) illustrative or decorative material: Is there any art with the copy for this story?
7.
the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.
8.
the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
9.
skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
10.
a branch of learning or university study, esp. one of the fine arts or the humanities, as music, philosophy, or literature.
11.
arts,
a.
( used with a singular verb ) the humanities: a college of arts and sciences.
b.
( used with a plural verb ) liberal arts.
12.
skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.
13.
trickery; cunning: glib and devious art.
14.
studied action; artificiality in behavior.
15.
an artifice or artful device: the innumerable arts and wiles of politics.
16.
Archaic . science, learning, or scholarship.
Out of all the definitions displayed here, I only believe in the ones that are in bold.
This is because I find it hard to conceive that intent can exist in the realm of art and if it can, that pretty much means everything can = art. Which to me is bullshit, why? Because it allows those who lack the skill and technique to portray themselves as some otherworldly beings that have transcended from god. Or, it's just a handy word to market towards those who need some higher level of ego gratification.
I love Killing Joke but I do not consider what they do as art, but I love their music. If I were to compare them to Bella Bartok, I could say there is more art in Bartok's creations due to the level of skill and knowledge that Bartok has in his arsenal. It doesn't stop me from loving both of them just as much as each other. I feel like when art is used to define intent and result, it empowers those who need ego gratification and taste validation.
I went to an art gallery once and I saw this canvas on the wall which was painted entirely black and it had an orange square just off from the center. I thought to myself "what the fuck is this piece of shit doing here?" and I had to walk up to the synopsis plaque and read it in order to figure out the intent of such a piece and discovered it was based on human society etc etc. No, sorry but before I looked at this plaque, it looked like a black canvas with a fucking orange square, that's it. The fact that I needed to read the synopsis (which I never do, because the painting should be able to COMMUNICATE to me what it's implying) proves to me that the text was more important than the fucking canvas itself.
There's action art where a guy fucking a dead horse is considered a piece of art. Yea cool, you know what? I actually think it's just a guy fucking a dead horse. I don't care about the intent, it requires no skill what so ever. I believe in the art of creation, the art of skill which helps define the end result:
the art of programming
the art of building
the art of painting
the art of recording
the art of engineering
the art of composing
and so on. The way people express art these days is very similar to how somebody expresses how something is "good" or "bad". Oh this soup tastes good or ah man, this car looks bad. What does it all mean at the end of the day? It's all perceived value, and seeing how that's entirely subjective, we will never agree on how something can be defined as art through intent or result of his/her skill/technique/craftsmanship. It is there to satiate those who are obsessed with validating their tastes/egos by believing it's something more objectively profound.
Okaaaay but it's still a guy fucking a dead horse.
John Rabbit
Banned
oh my god has the thread hit this point after only THREE pages?robor said:
EternalGamer
Banned
Rabbitwork said:
The irony is that Blow says nothing about games as "art." He merely talks about trying to instill games with some sort of value other than trying to make them "addictive" as possible or as Skinner boxes designed to use manipulative techniques to keep the player playing.