Journey Creator: Games Aren't Good Enough for Adults

[mysecondlife]

I guess I can some what agree with this. I like games for what it is but I'd love for games that teaches me something to come out more frequently.

If tv show like Breaking Bad can teach me little about chemistry, I don't see how its impossible for games to do something similar but better.

 

[Richardplex]

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.

I like how we both go for visual novel examples. Mine was Fate/Stay Night if you were wondering.

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.

Most people become more empathizing and generally nicer when confronted with a tragedy, real or fictitious.

Captcha: love is automatic

Can't speak for anyone else naturally, but I become less empathizing. Fictitious tragedy doesn't have actual consequences, so I can let myself be enveloped in that grief and enjoy the incredible amount of emotion I'm feeling. Real life I'm far more apathetic because I gain no pleasure in that grief.

But I've commonly been told I have sociopathic attributes, so maybe that's just me.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Well I see his points since modern games are low brow poorly made entertainment thats made not for the product to sell to as many people as possible making it even worse..

 

[Saviordd1]

Why are 90% of indie devs pretentious? Yes you made a slightly artistic game, it doesn't make you the sole expert on the subject of gaming.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I really hate it when developers say this, because all they're really doing is underestimating their consumers. Granted that give the massive sales of shit games like Call of Duty, they have every right to, but it always strikes a nerve with me.

Firstly, even if your game of choice WAS Call of Duty, who cares if it's intellectually stimulating? It's a fucking hobby. You don't necessarily need to walk away with some real life lesson from it. I strongly believe that games can be a great medium for telling a story, so that's mostly why I game, but that doesn't have to be the case for everyone. Hobbies draw people in for different reasons. I mean, do you think people that paint Warhammer miniatures are getting some kind of intellectual stimulation out of it? Maybe, but I'm guessing its not the kind Chen is talking about.

Secondly, I hate this sort of argument he's making because it reminds me of people who read non-fiction looking down on those that read fiction. I have literally had these sorts ask me, "Why are you reading that? It's not like you're getting anything out of it." Reading fiction is no different than watching a movie or a TV show, except that I enjoy it better because my imagination can carve out a more vivid picture of what's going on.

As for games not being intellectually stimulating, why does it have to be relevant to real life in order for that to be so? Portal is intellectually stimulating, as is Professor Layton. The Witcher series has a fantastically well written story that doesn't talk down to its audience even for a moment, and Assassin's Creed faithfully recreates locations that are as interesting to explore as they are to kill through.

TL;DR: Indie game developers are as stuck up as any other indie variation of media.

 

[dyre]

Having read the rest of the linked interview, it seems like he's just a guy who, in mid-statement, realized he didn't really know what point he was trying to make, and just filled in the blanks with random bullshit to try to sound meaningful. The guy doesn't seem pretentious, he's just making a mistake all of us have made, except that he has the misfortune of being recorded by a journalist.

 

[DarthSka]

I'm starting to see a trend from these Indie Developers:
-Make game
-Game becomes successful
-Talk about how different and intellectual your game is from the norm and how that automatically makes both you and your game better than everything and everyone

As to his point, if I'm having fun, then shut up. I'm having fun.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

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.

I think you just said everything I was going to say here. Personally, as an adult, I quite enjoy shooting someone in the head with a sniper rifle. No it's not relevent to real life, but neither is wandering through a desert solving puzzles, which is what seems to be the case in Journey, nor is using time manipulation to er, solve more puzzles like in Braid.

But then, I don't play games to experiance something relevent to life anyway, I play games to ESCAPE from the boring as shit existence I must endure. And now it seems real life is getting crowded with pretentious douches telling me what to play? Fuck you guys!

And what kind of a fucking name is Jenova anyway? Tell me that's made up because he's just that massive a FF nerd and decided to legally change it as a reference.

 

[targren]

ITT: Another indy dev talks navel-gazing out of his arse.

I particularly smirked at this bit.

"For adults to enjoy something, they need to have intellectual stimulation, something that's related to real life"

Allow me to say "Fuck THAT."

Real life is getting up early and going to work. It's paying bills and keeping up with car maintenence. It's juggling 100,000 niggling little problems that have Voltroned into Ultra-Super-Mega-Stressbeast Alpha.

I want my entertainment to be as far from real life as fucking possible. Yeah, a lot of the time, that does include some intellectual stimulation. Others, I don't want to use my damn brain at all. I want to have fun making a girl in a bathing suit and cowboy hat cleave zombies into sashimi by the hundreds, shoot demons in the face with shotguns, or kill the same rat 7500 times until it drops "Rattigan's Ratty Ratblade of Ratkind +2."

You know what's NOT fun? Walking through only barely-interactive scenery porn while some tosser waxes philisophical at me by proxy.

 

[Zukhramm]

Apparently "We should have higher standards" is pretentious statement now.

 

[thirion1850]

If i wanted to learn something useful in life i would go outside, i love doing combos.

Why not have the ability to learn something meaningful whilst doing combos? Just a thought, but people constantly whine about games not being taken seriously or as 'art', yet when others try to take strides towards the idea, suddenly the thought of games being artistically relevant or as art should be, thought provoking, is an evil sin. Suddenly everything that resembles art is pretentious, pompous, elitist, artsy, retarded and 'anti-fun'.

Because, you know, an engaging narrative, a strong plot, attaching characters and fun game mechanics in whichever genre somehow can't also deliver a message, declare an idea and provoke a changing thought. And yes, teach something useful and/or unexpected. The guy here doesn't appear to be saying anything other than that - it's true, stupid fun is amazing. But the ratio between games that force us to rethink ideas and previous standards or foundations to everything else last I checked is massive. If film, book and play can do it, I don't see why games shouldn't.

Apparently "We should have higher standards" is pretentious statement now.

In a nutshell, this. Better said than I could.

 

[ecoho]

i learned problem solving from halo, reasorce management from starcraft, and read over 30 books in dragon age origions, yeah games arnt for adults.

 

[grenideer]

What's the matter with Escapist headlines lately?

"Games aren't good for adults" and clicking the link quickly changes the headline to "Games aren't good *enough* for adults", which means something completely different.

Or what about "The Avengers cost NYC X Billion dollars" and then reading the article explains that this is the amount of money that a real life execution of the story would actually cost the city.

Is the website hurting that much for ad revenues? Please treat us like adults. Right now the headlines are going the way of Yahoo!.

 

[samsonguy920]

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

This just echoes the statements we got from Braid's creator. He has a point, but what should be said is that it shouldn't have been said. There is room for both headshots and intellectual discovery. That is why we buy 1-2 TB hard drives so as to be able to have a variety of games on our system. I play Saints Row the Third. With my job, I need that game so I don't go crazy. I also play Poker Night at the Inventory and Bejeweled Twist to game with my brain. There are also games that game with both our brains and our child. Total War and Deus Ex are good examples.

Either case, best thing to be said here to Mr. Chen: Well, yeah, that's just your opinion, man.

 

[surg3n]

Game designers are not experts on the human psyche - but being a game programmer might push the arrogance level up, to the point that one might think they are.

For me, videogames are about escapism, I can forget the real world for a while, and be a kick-ass soldier, or a sword wielding douchebag, or a fricken cube of meat if I want. Games don't have to relate to anything in my life, in fact, the less they reflect real life, the better IMO. His idea/argument falls flat on it's face no matter how you look at it. There are no games that reflect real life, or really go out of their way to educate, these games don't sell. A poker game is there to fill a void, a void caused by the lack of enough people to play poker! - what is the point of playing a poker game, then pretending it teaches you how to bluff! - bluff what, the on screen avatar of other players?, CPU players?, is that even remotely considered education!
For me, general videogames are only educational in regard to the way they show the results of things you'd never do in real life. Really, all we need from videogames is a bit of a break from reality, that's all, entertain us for a little bit, let us vent by shooting avatars in the face, or ploughing down pedestrians, no designer should think for a second that we want games to reflect our lives more, that's fully retarded if you ask me.

 

[blackrave]

As some random guy from the Internetz that was slightly interested in Journey I have to interject that maybe he should start developing PC versions of his game, otherwise they will have to remain "emotionally unavailable" to me since I don't own or want any ToyBoxes right now.

Pretty much this

As long as you develop games only for consoles (overpriced hi-tech toys, in my opinion), you have no rights to make some claims about what adults need.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

I'm an adult and I've gotten tired of COD clones and space marine clones, because I do not relate to these kinds of games. I instead prefer to play games like Dungeons of Dredmor or other games that require a bit of thinking. I'm more partial to games that tap to my inner emotions, even if it's something that's usually dismissed by others as brainless and mind-numbing, like Asura's Wrath (despite the fact that that game had one particular scene that made me tear up because it reminds me of my NOW DEAD FATHER). I'm partial to first-person games that are more like first-person interactive stories. I also like games that subvert or play with tropes that have been milked to death due to lack of creativity or public demand, and I most certainly am partial to games that are not grimdark serious, but instead much more laid-back. Seriously, when was the last time anybody played a game where you had a casual conversation with Chthulhu?

tl;dr I'm the type who likes escapism and thinking outside the box. If that makes me an hipster **** and emotionless tool, then fine. After all, I'm just an insignificant insect compared to the massive army of headshot enthusiasts and military buffs.