Journey Creator: Games Aren't Good Enough for Adults

[Captain Anon]

Journey Creator: Games Aren't Good Enough for Adults

Adults need relevant intellectual stimulation.

Thatgamecompany's Jenova Chen works on games that are thoughtful and elegant like Flower [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/9494-Journey-Review]. These are games that many point to as examples that games can be genuinely artistic, even if they won't ever sell as well as Call of Duty. Not that Chen wants to make Call of Duty anyway.

"[Games] are not good enough for adults," Chen said in a Gamasutra interview [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/170557/What_Jenova_Chen_doesnt_like_about_video_games_.php]. For him, it comes down to a matter of real-world relevance. "For adults to enjoy something, they need to have intellectual stimulation, something that's related to real life. Playing poker teaches you how to deceive people, and that's relevant to real life. A headshot with a sniper rifle is not relevant to real life."

This is not the first time that Chen has made these kinds of statements, either. They echo his words PlayStation Blog [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106867-Flower-Creator-Loves-Action-Games-Questions-Their-Usefulness]. "What does that do for your life? It's not useful."

Chen told Gamasutra that games for adults had to be relevant intellectually. "Can games make you and another human experience an emotion that's deep enough to touch adults?" That was his aim with the ephemeral connections forged in Journey's multiplayer, he said, and that was what he hoped to continue to do, by making "emotional games ... where people can connect and come together."

The full feature interview with Chen is over on Gamasutra [http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/170547/a_personal_journey_jenova_chens_.php], and it's well worth a read - especially if you're like me, and keep picturing him as the villain from Final Fantasy VII.

Source: Gamasutra [http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/170547/a_personal_journey_jenova_chens_.php]

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-having a drink while reading this and then reads the quote then spills his drink out- WHAT THE HELL?!?! Games Aren't Good Enough for ADULTS WHAT IS HE STUPID HALF OF US ARE ADULTS WHAT THE HELL!?!?!

 

[Sylveria]

This is not the first time that Chen has made these kinds of statements, either. They echo his words PlayStation Blog [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106867-Flower-Creator-Loves-Action-Games-Questions-Their-Usefulness]. "What does that do for your life? It's not useful."

Catharsis maybe? I don't know about most people, but I don't play games purely to be intellectually stimulated. Is it nice when I play something that makes me think about it on a deeper level? Yeah, but sometimes I just want to beat some monsters into bloody chunks cause I've had a rough day at work and need some steam blown off.

Beyond that, what does "art" do for your life anyway? How is "art" useful? It really isn't. It may be stimulating and fascinating, but it ultimately has no "use". A can-opener has far more uses than the Mona Lisa because it was made to perform a function while the arguably most famous painting in the world is simply meant to exist.

I'm sure kids with their super useful Art degrees will be coming out of the woodwork to explain to me exactly how I'm wrong, so have at it, and enjoy your night working at Burger King.

 

[ArnRand]

I feel like he is saying something half intelligent, but it is too embezzled in pretentious to take seriously. His games are great, yes, but he doesn't seem to understand shit about other genres.

Hear, hear!

The sheer pompousness is simply astounding. Guys like Jonathan Blow and Jenova Shen makes one hit artsy game and then they think they can dismiss everything that isn't enough high-culture to meet their standard.

Look, I appreciate that the debate is there, whether games can be more than entertainment etc. but it doesn't help in the slightest if the creators and supposed pioneers of artsy games have their noses lodged in the fucking sky.

Can we just have a rule that game developers shouldn't be able to open their mouths? It always goes wrong.

...And so much this, as well. First the ridiculous business about Cliff Bleszinski and now Jenova Chen is vomiting pretentiousness all over the floor. They sure make good games but it seems that their thoughts is best projected in games or inside their own brilliant minds.

'One hit artsy game'? The guy has a masters degree from the university of southern california, and has created four games (including flower and flow) all of which got substantial praise and won awards, not to mention pretty big sales figures. You can not agree with what he's saying, but he's obviously a pretty clever guy, and I think he deserves a chance to say what he feels about the game industry, and I don't think he's being particuarly dickish or pretentious. He wants games to have more intellectual heft. Is that really blasphemous?

 

[FoolKiller]

Does he understand what the word game means?

Does he know what playing is?

 

[Darkmantle]

This statement is hilarious in light of the fact that the average gamer is an adult. Obviously it's good enough, we're all buying it.



... Jerk

 

[johnnnny guitar]

oh ah OK I guess don't get to ahead of yourself mate I love journey hell it will be one of my top 5 games this year but don't get to pretentious there is place for mindless violence in games just as films and TV have some mindless violence and while I think we need more games like journey we also need to keep our heads out of our arses .

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I would disagree with his initial statements because he is confusing the metagame complexities of a "real world" activity with the surface interaction of a video game.

Poker teaching deception is not a necessary component to the game. I'm not saying that it is not important, but if anyone has ever played with amateurs, they can play the game even with a lousy poker face.

The example of reloading a sniper rifle in COD or Battlefield is only looking at the surface interaction of the game. That would be akin to someone knowing when to draw or hold in poker (which unless you are a professional is not a relevant life skill) without ever learning how to read tells.

Multiplayer games do teach adult lessons. Cooperation with strangers, often through the movement of the on screen characters if you keep others muted like I do for playing on Xbox live. Same for how does your team work with an uncooperative member? The social aspects of these games do have real world applications.

 

[The3rdEye]

Loved Journey, blew my mind. On a related note:

Yay for industry bigotry.[footnote]Yay for industry bigotry,Yay for industry bigotry,Yay for industry bigotry[/footnote]

 

[OZITOMAI]

please tell me at what age people are counted as adults? cause roosterteeth guys are in their forties and they love games, so that was a stupid comment

 

[Alpha Maeko]

Games aren't good for adults. ( Games are bad for you! Games are evil! )

Games aren't good enough for adults. ( Games aren't good enough for you. You deserve better. )

Funny how leaving out one word of the title on the main page will up your article's views significantly.

As for the Journey developer... meh, maybe he's got a point, but I don't see how it matters. To me, games are about whatever you want them to be (fun, education, escapism, etc.). So, unless intellectual superiority is all you crave, his argument is mute.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

He's starting to sound like Jonathan Blow.

My respect for this guy just took a pretty sizable hit.

 

[SageRuffin]

I can agree with this. Although I wouldn't go to such extremes, for instance, I love fighting games. They're fun, challenging, competitive and something I can enjoy with a friend. I also like games where I can just fuck about for no reason like Prototype or Saint's Row.

I concur somewhat, meaning that I don't agree with with this Jenova Chen person, but I too have quite the fondness of fighting games.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: sometimes, after a hard and/or long days work, all I wanna do is shoot someone in the dick and laugh like a 10-year-old who's just discovered Beavis and Butthead (good times). Or to use the above poster's example of Prototype, sometimes I just wanna throw myself (literally) at a helicopter from halfway across the city (and lemme tell ya, it's some of the most awesome shit in the world).

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Having enjoyed Journey quite a bit, I'm kind of disappointed to learn its creator is a pretentious ****.

As was the case with Braid and that dickpiston Jon Blow. Strange how the artsy types always seem to be absolute and utter cunts.

 

[timelordrick]

Because as we all know, the point of video games is to expand people's minds and teach them lessons about real life. Not to have some fun. That's just silly.

 

[Weaver]

Chess is intellectually stimulating. I used to play with my grandfather all the time; but - and trust me on this one - it hasn't taught me any real world applications. You can argue it teaches strategy and planning ahead, but does it really? It seems to just teach chess strategy and planning ahead in chess.

He's kind of all over the place. First we need intellectual stimulation, then we need for the game to make us and another adult feel things; which is it? "Poker teaches deception". No, no it doesn't; it teaches you how to play poker. You are not suddenly Frank Abagnale because you can keep a straight face with a shitty hand.

And let's say I buy that argument; what is journey teaching me? How to slide around sand dunes? It seems to me he just likes playing poker and is trying to justify it in his bizarre world of criteria for "adult things".

Anyways, I think I see what he was trying to say; that the industry needs to grow up. THAT I can get behind, but the baffling parallels he's trying to draw are ... well, baffling.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

"Time you enjoyed wasting, is not wasted time" T.S. Eliot

Fuck off Chen, I don't need people inside the industry criticizing me the way my parents do.

 

[chadachada123]

Making someone cry because the game made them kill someone who the game made them fall in love with because the story is a dick isn't relevant to real life either. Sure you made me invested emotionally in the story and the characters, but it doesn't teach me anything. I don't appreciate people more, I don't feel bad for people in real life, and killing people close to me hopefully won't be relevant to life either. I like his conclusion, but I think his reasoning isn't sound.

Pretty much done in one, although I have one small first-hand experience that I think slightly alters this point.

The vast majority of games (and movies/books, even) are not written anything like Katawa Shoujo, but that series has made me cry and has made me fall in love with three separate characters, and while that alone wouldn't be "relevant" to real life necessarily, I will say this:

I learned a good deal about my own self in the process, and became measurably less of a dick because of this. In that sense, KS is the type of "adult" game that this developer is hoping for, and a type of effective story-telling that I have rarely seen in ANY medium.