The inspiration, psyche of Jonathan Blow

Read this article yesterday, by Taylor Clark, writer for The Atlantic magazine. It is a lengthy article on Jonathan Blow's inspirations for Braid and The Witness, his thoughts on the current state of the gaming industry, and really just an overall look into the mind of Blow. As a huge fan of Braid and eagerly awaiting The Witness, I thought it was quite interesting to look at Blow's attitude toward both his own work and others. What do you guys think of his views on games, and also his attitude as a developer?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/3/?single_page=true

He sounds like one of the least enjoyable people you could possibly spend time with. I also find it somewhat peculiar that someone so cold and logic driven would choose establishing video games as an art form as his goal.

His vitriol towards modern game development is rather abrasive too. I like Saints Row: The Third. I'm sure Jon would say that I am childish, juvenile even. I generally stand with C.S. Lewis on this:

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

I do agree that there should be a broader range of games out there, but to decry the very existence of games going for a blockbuster experience is ridiculous. On the other hand, I actually do agree that Zynga's revenue model/design philosophy is unethical.

I dislike that the article ignores the existence of other indie games that are meaningful.

There you have it. Some quick thoughts.

I'm with Jim Sterling on this. Sometimes I like games like this *jumps out of a chopper while Power plays and thinks it's so hilarious that he downloads a mod that allows him to replay that mission and then does so like 30 times* and sometimes I like games like this *spends hours banging his head against time manipulation puzzles to get the hidden ending and then afterwards reads several long threads discussing what the game means*.

I don't see anything wrong with liking both, although I will admit that when I make lists of best games, I tend to rank the latter higher.

anyways, Jonathan Blow may be kind of a dick sometimes, but he made a really, really good game, and I'm looking forward to the Witness.

Great article. I'm going to read throughly. I can understand where Jonathan Blow comes from.

@ADAMWD said:

More specifically, Blow has decided to use his money—nearly all of it—to finance what may be the most intellectually ambitious video game in history, one that he hopes will radically expand the limitations of his chosen field. Although video games long ago blossomed into full commercial maturity (the adrenaline-soaked military shooterCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, racked up $400 million in sales during its first 24 hours in stores last fall), the form remains an artistic backwater, plagued by cartoonish murderfests and endless revenue-friendly sequels. Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony withThe Witness, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island. In a medium still awaiting its quantum intellectual leap, Blow aims to makeThe Witnessa groundbreaking piece of interactive art—a sort ofCitizen Kaneof video games.

I'm sorry, but whoever wrote this article is talking fucking pretentious shit that is just plain wrong. Rome: Total War (about a decade old) is a murder fest. It's also a fun mainstream game. It was also an intellectual game that transcended it's medium being used in channels aimed at chin stroking intellectuals to educate and simulate ancient battles. Whoever wrote this is a fucking asshole. imo.

Load of bollocks.

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@ADAMWD said:

More specifically, Blow has decided to use his money—nearly all of it—to finance what may be the most intellectually ambitious video game in history, one that he hopes will radically expand the limitations of his chosen field. Although video games long ago blossomed into full commercial maturity (the adrenaline-soaked military shooterCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, racked up $400 million in sales during its first 24 hours in stores last fall), the form remains an artistic backwater, plagued by cartoonish murderfests and endless revenue-friendly sequels. Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony withThe Witness, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island. In a medium still awaiting its quantum intellectual leap, Blow aims to makeThe Witnessa groundbreaking piece of interactive art—a sort ofCitizen Kaneof video games.

I'm sorry, but whoever wrote this article is talking fucking pretentious shit that is just plain wrong. Rome: Total War (about a decade old) is a murder fest. It's also a fun mainstream game. It was also an intellectual game that transcended it's medium being used in channels aimed at chin stroking intellectuals to educate and simulate ancient battles. Whoever wrote this is a fucking asshole. imo.

Load of fucking bollocks.

If you took Europa Barbarorum modded Rome Total War, somehow had larger scale battles and more interesting battlefields, a Crusader Kings II style dynasty roleplaying/intrigue system, and maybe the option for Mount and Blade style combat and a Waterloo style command system (ie. you only directly control your general) you would have the greatest history-geek game ever made. *wistful sigh*

Article's kinda getting ripped apart by some people ... for valid reasons i guess? That whoever wrote it is a bit over-enthused, and makes generalisations / ignores a lot of good work already done by games and game makers.

But for what it is - a magazine profile of someone interesting, I enjoyed the read.

Much like comedy snobbery, game snobbery is just as absurd. From his position though there is much more at stake.

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@ADAMWD said:

More specifically, Blow has decided to use his money—nearly all of it—to finance what may be the most intellectually ambitious video game in history, one that he hopes will radically expand the limitations of his chosen field. Although video games long ago blossomed into full commercial maturity (the adrenaline-soaked military shooterCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, racked up $400 million in sales during its first 24 hours in stores last fall), the form remains an artistic backwater, plagued by cartoonish murderfests and endless revenue-friendly sequels. Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony withThe Witness, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island. In a medium still awaiting its quantum intellectual leap, Blow aims to makeThe Witnessa groundbreaking piece of interactive art—a sort ofCitizen Kaneof video games.

I'm sorry, but whoever wrote this article is talking fucking pretentious shit that is just plain wrong. Rome: Total War (about a decade old) is a murder fest. It's also a fun mainstream game. It was also an intellectual game that transcended it's medium being used in channels aimed at chin stroking intellectuals to educate and simulate ancient battles. Whoever wrote this is a fucking asshole. imo.

Load of bollocks.

I agree, this writer is an idiot... like there were never any 'smart' games before Braid and Blow is the savior of video games.

Regardless, Jonathan Blow sounds like a very interesting person with a strange personality, I like that. This makes me interested in his games.

Before reading this, even though I didn't like his games, I could respect the man.

Now I just don't like his games.

@Scrawnto: Great Clive quote.

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

I'm sorry, but whoever wrote this article is talking fucking pretentious shit that is just plain wrong. Rome: Total War (about a decade old) is a murder fest. It's also a fun mainstream game. It was also an intellectual game that transcended it's medium being used in channels aimed at chin stroking intellectuals to educate and simulate ancient battles. Whoever wrote this is a fucking asshole. imo.

Load of bollocks.

This a million times over.

@Giantstalker: I'm the exact opposite. I think his games are cool but I find the guy overly pretentious (oy, I feel pretentious just using that word). Listen to him on the E3 bombcast circa 2011 (might be 2010 but not sure) when they have the guy from Microsoft and him duking it out.

I like/admire Blow's games/passion but just not anything else about him.

Braid is an alright game and Blow has talent, that's where my compliments of the man end. His views, his painstakingly pretentious views, are nigh on unbearable, and so easily broken down by people with but a modicum of common sense that it makes me question whether the man actually even lives on planet Earth. The writer of that article is, to my mind, the current scourge of our gaming community. The sort of person who needlessly perpetuates such indignant, elitist attitutes towards any game they feel is 'base' or 'unintellectual', and hailing people like Blow as the saviour of the industry, when the man is little more than a speck of dust when compared to luminaries like Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, Shigeru Miyamoto, et al.

This is what's desperately wrong with the indie scene at the minute, these sort of self-ennobling bags of hot air who spend more time whining and force-feeding us their pretentious attitudes about the poor state of the industry than taking any real action to try and rectify it. It can be nice for people to share their views, it can be great to see passion in developers, but I do so wish these fools would quite frankly shut the fuck up, because at this point we've really heard more than enough god damn negativity.

add blow to the list of indie dev assholes

I don't mind his pretentiousness as much as others seem to.

Gaming is an interesting hobby in that it's really difficult to feel good about spending money. Between angry self-absorbed spock logic dorks like Blow and giant faceless corpo outfits cranking out boring and cynically made franchises with too much publisher influence there are few games I can buy and not feel like a total turd about.

I kind of got the "Artiste" vibe from his appearance on the E3 bombcast. Unsurprisingly, that continues to hold true.

The picture at the top of the article just sums up the douchiness of this guy way better than I ever could with words. My favourite quote from the article is this

'Video games are juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy. At least that’s what Jonathan Blow thinks. But the game industry’s harshest critic is also its most cerebral developer, a maverick bent on changing the way we think about games and storytelling'

How exactly is he a maverick? He made a good 2D puzzle platformer with time control mechanics. The story is told awfully and the only truly mind blowing thing about the game is the final sequence. There are plenty of games that do story way better than Braid so I don't understand where he is getting all this crazy praise from.

This is a poorly written(& researched) article, & as for Blow I certainly enjoyed Braid but I don't really understand why it has the reputation it(& he) does, if I want to play a well written game I would suggest that Obsidian are head & shoulders above most of the industry.

This sounds like it was written by someone who doesn't understand or play very many videogames.

what the fuck is the "average millionaire?"

I love Braid, but man he's actively trying to make me hate it. Shut the fuck up dude!

What a doof.

Thank god Blow is here to save us. Here we all are, sitting in squalor playing with our dumb broken toys, not knowing any better. Finally someone smart enough has come along to explain to everyone what a good game is. It's a 2d puzzle platformer.

I want to say that I respect Jonathan Blow but that there are areas where I disagree with him. However that's not really the case so much as it is that I can see where he's coming from but simply don't share his perspective. I am at least now confident in my view of him, something I've been unable to finalize before, so I'm happy about that.

A very interesting article for sure, though I found it's writer and the often-quoted friend of Blow far more disagreable than the man himself.

*puts on tin-foil hat*

All the Indie devs making crass generalisations and insulting other games in the industry is just their way of drumming up some attention.

I agree he is a bit pretentious when it comes to how he thinks of the current market, but he does have a good point about how most big games are variants of the 14 year old cream fest action films. For example I respect Uncharted for what it does visually and the quality of the voice acting, but that's where it ends. The games are just the next logical step on this predictable chronology of games becoming more visually impressive and visceral. We do need the type of metaphysical games Blow is putting out, whether we like the man or not. Otherwise we reinforce that the community is represented by the typical guy playing COD on XBL.

If video games are ever widely considered to be Art it certainly won't be because somebody with an attitude forced it to happen.

Blow's the only aggressively humble person I've ever witnessed.

@Jerr said:

I agree he is a bit pretentious when it comes to how he thinks of the current market, but he does have a good point about how most big games are variants of the 14 year old cream fest action films.

Come on man did you really need Jon Blow to tell you that?

Wow... Blow really believes his own bullshit. I guess a million dollars and a bunch of game critics telling you that you're a genius will do that. All I can say is, nice job on Braid. Now make another good game (or 2) before trying to save an industry that is actually doing just fine, thanks.

"Money is just a tool I can use to get things down."
 
He really has a way with words.
 
"In a medium still awaiting its quantum intellectual leap, Blow aims to make The Witness a groundbreaking piece of interactive art—a sort of Citizen Kane of video game"
 
This is fucking vile.  Not only am I tired of hearing "Citizen Kane of video games," it makes no sense.  Video games aren't the film industry.  They aren't interactive movies.  They're video games.  Super Mario Galaxy is one of the greatest games of all time because it's so good at being a video game.  You'll never see a movie anything like Super Mario Galaxy.  And Super Mario Galaxy doesn't need to be a thought-provoking drama, because video games are not movies.  They just need to be video games.  Stop fucking judging video games by the same ignorant criteria as movies.
 
The whole article is one of the most offensively ignorant things I've ever read on video games.

Johnathon, heywouldjablowme?

Seriously. Braid was a good premise and a smart puzzle platformer, but it was also really pretentious and had some glaring art issues. JBlow (as I will now call him) should stop and think a little before he talks from now because The Witness may turn out to be The Shitness and all of his pretentious prognostication may actually be little more than people pandering to his pensive penis prestidigitation.

Whatever, guys. Hate, hate, hate. This was written by someone who clearly doesn't have much history with video games, so forgive him if he's not familiar with the more important, more intellectual games. Someone who is outside of the gaming scene would likely only see the overabundance of shooters released every week. Personally, I agree with many of the points made in the article. Video games are stuck in a rut in some cases. We all obsess over stuff like Call of Duty, yet I think this author is accurate when he says that games like this are "so silly and so poorly written that they make Michael Bay movies look like the Godfather series." I've always had this problem with games. I enjoy Uncharted 2, but our game of the year is literary equivalent of just about any summer popcorn flick. I have always struggled with the fact that my favorite form of entertainment media is in many ways the basest. Now, as some of you have pointed out, games aren't movies, and I don't want them to be. That's why I so strongly agree with the article's statements about games being more than simply interactive films. Gaming has the potential to do what other media cannot. We've beaten the mass murderer horse, and I'm ready for something new. I love these art games, and I think that J. Blow is on the right track. Sure, he's pretentious. Yesterday at work, a man came in to pick up a computer we had repaired. I didn't catch the whole conversation, but it was about movies. All I heard was this man say was "...one of those artsy douches? He can go #$&! his boring B.S. while I enjoy good old fashioned gore." It's shocking how this is the only statement I heard, and it is now so relevant. This is how I interpret what many people have to say about "artsy" games. I wish I had a better word to describe it... but it's just as pretentious as the developer who says he wants his game to be art, though in a different way.

So, that's just a big wall of text, and I'm not going to bother going back and revising it. In closing, Blow's ideas are exactly what the industry needs to remain relevant. I enjoy mindless action games as much as the rest of you. I guess they're wearing on me. I still play Team Fortress 2, but that's probably the only FPS I've played in... wow, probably since the original Modern Warfare (unless you count Portal 2). Eventually, we'll all get tired of it. I'm all about having something more, games with depth that goes beyond sub-weapons and perks.

Jonathan Blowhard?

I loved Braid and respect Blow, but in the past he's tried to pass his opinions off as fact.

Oh well, as long as The Witness has even a fraction of Braid's magic, he'll continue to not bother me.

haha man does everyone get personally insulted when he calls you childish for enjoying stupid games? get over yourselves dang.

Hey, I don't really know what to say about Blow, but the author was a little too complimentary, it seemed. Plus that pic of Blow is pretty funny.

@BoG: It sounds like you think Jonathon Blow is the only person creating games based on esoteric ideas and yet we have thatgamecompany, Portal's Kim Swift even some quite successful, large, commercially successful enterprises who have been actively engaged in creating esoteric games. How exactly is the games industry losing relevance when it's just reached Critical Mass. I would say its more relevant now than it ever has been and it's been a pretty consistent part of modern culture since the late 70s and the rise and rise of the Arcades. Jonathon Blow has created one working example of his ideas and yet he talks as if his work stands alone and gives him the right to criticise an industry which he's barely part of, historically speaking. And speaking historically I should add that esoteric games have pretty always been around and they are only occasionally huge successes and I'm 100% thrilled it's that way because if it changed then they would no longer be breeding grounds for new ideas and new methods of expression. They have proper influence in that way. Once they become the norm, they become banal. Much like a lot of what Jonathon Blow says.

@Animasta said:

haha man does everyone get personally insulted when he calls you childish for enjoying stupid games? get over yourselves dang.

But Braid isn't a particularly clever game. Yes, it has some very clever aspects. It has a somnolence and an adult context which few other games attempt, but it's a puzzle platformer with a time mechanic and that's already been explored by other games and certainly had at the time of its release.

MEANWHILE....RADIOHEAD....LIVE @ COACHELLA!!

Blow may come off as a snob or crass but the fact is that the man's a genius. He's one of the few truly creative people in this industry right now so no matter how much a jerk he may seem, he still has my infinite respect. Besides, anyone who listened to his appearance on the Bombcast last E3 should know that he came off as a pretty cool dude so I wouldn't judge him based on one article. 

@Animasta said:

haha man does everyone get personally insulted when he calls you childish for enjoying stupid games? get over yourselves dang.

It's hilarious to see how butthurt people get when someone tells them what they don't like to hear, such as Blow or Jaffe. They will flame the hell out a review if the score is not high enough, no matter how well written it is, and they will praise people such as Todd Howard, who will tell them exactly what he thinks they want to hear. Here's a newsflash: Video games are fucking stupid. The best of them take advantage of that fact, and I love them for that.

@ichthy said:

This sounds like it was written by someone who doesn't understand or play very many videogames.

Personally I don't have a problem with that. But when he acts like he is some authority when he clearly hasn't a clue. It just makes him look like a huge hairy cunt from a bad 1970's porno.

@Scrawnto said:

He sounds like one of the least enjoyable people you could possibly spend time with. I also find it somewhat peculiar that someone so cold and logic driven would choose establishing video games as an art form as his goal.

His vitriol towards modern game development is rather abrasive too. I like Saints Row: The Third. I'm sure Jon would say that I am childish, juvenile even. I generally stand with C.S. Lewis on this:

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

I do agree that there should be a broader range of games out there, but to decry the very existence of games going for a blockbuster experience is ridiculous. On the other hand, I actually do agree that Zynga's revenue model/design philosophy is unethical.

I dislike that the article ignores the existence of other indie games that are meaningful.

There you have it. Some quick thoughts.

Good quote, I agree. I wasn't a fan of Saints Row: The Third, but it was more because the childish immature awesome parts were so far and few between in an otherwise mediocre and sometimes rather bad game. I've always felt that caring about what you do being childish is ridiculous. I think back on before I came out of the closet and was more open about my sexuality. I was always concerned about what the reaction would be, what other people would think of it, either being assholes or obnoxiously over supportive. Then I grew up a little and realized it means fuck all, do what you want and own it. If you wanna wear a pink suit to a convention, do it and pull it off, because that's what being man means, not worrying about the masculinity of your car or whether or not you're playing, in the words of Brad Shoemaker, "kiddy shit."

@artgarcrunkle said:

Gaming is an interesting hobby in that it's really difficult to feel good about spending money. Between angry self-absorbed spergos like Blow and giant faceless corpo outfits cranking out boring and cynically made franchises with too much publisher influence there are few games I can buy and not feel like a total turd about.

I disagree. Maybe you should stop buying ever game you see compulsively? I'm gaming on no income, as I'm still at home and working on getting on a job, so maybe that helps me appreciate games, but I rarely purchase a game and feel at any point before, after, or during that I made a poor mistake. Here and there a game certainly disappoints me, but much more often than not I get engrossed in awesome games, enjoy the hell out of them, and continue loving the industry. It's not perfect, but there have always been a lot of shitty games. It's just that now it's because they are generic and bland, but usually more than sound in terms of gameplay mechanics and even other aspects (story maybe being the exception), rather than because they are just really really shitty games. And the idea of a person speaking against your opinions ruining your experience in unrelated games, that seems downright silly. Like the people who didn't buy Fez just because the dude who made it is a bit crass and stupid and a prick. Who cares? He's not an abhorent racist, he isn't abusing children, he's speaking his mind and making a fool of himself. But he mighta made a cool game, so why don't you stop giving a damn about the idiots in the indy circle, and just enjoy the cool personalities that permeate the industry. Not to mention all of the great games that exist out there if you just take a moment to find em.

@James_Giant_Peach said:

Braid is an alright game and Blow has talent, that's where my compliments of the man end. His views, his painstakingly pretentious views, are nigh on unbearable, and so easily broken down by people with but a modicum of common sense that it makes me question whether the man actually even lives on planet Earth. The writer of that article is, to my mind, the current scourge of our gaming community. The sort of person who needlessly perpetuates such indignant, elitist attitutes towards any game they feel is 'base' or 'unintellectual', and hailing people like Blow as the saviour of the industry, when the man is little more than a speck of dust when compared to luminaries like Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, Shigeru Miyamoto, et al.

This is what's desperately wrong with the indie scene at the minute, these sort of self-ennobling bags of hot air who spend more time whining and force-feeding us their pretentious attitudes about the poor state of the industry than taking any real action to try and rectify it. It can be nice for people to share their views, it can be great to see passion in developers, but I do so wish these fools would quite frankly shut the fuck up, because at this point we've really heard more than enough god damn negativity.

If by luminaries, you mean people who work on giant teams of folks and aren't really deserving of most of the credit or attention they get, then sure... At least Blow isn't taking credit for the work of a couple hundred folks. I die a little inside every time I see Kojima's name plastered about a million times ahead of one of "his" games, or every time someone talks about -insert Japanese talent here- being the best or worst thing a series has going. Not to say those guys aren't smart, important, skilled members of the industry, just that I hate the focus on them.

"...he left the university in 1993, a semester before he would have graduated."

So he can't be that bright.

@BBQBram: Sorry my sensitive bro. Cracked open a thesaurus and edited that post for you.

Blow seems far more strict and artsy here than I've seen him in other interviews - For example, he sounded pretty cool on last year's E3 Bombcast. I guess it's a combination of the article's author making certain assumptions about his character and the choice of quotes.

@ichthy said:

This sounds like it was written by someone who doesn't understand or play very many videogames.

That, too.

@SeriouslyNow: No, I'm totally aware that he's not the only person who wants video games to be more than what they are. I wouldn't even call Braid my favorite "art" game. I'm not saying that gaming is losing credibility, I'm saying that it is going to lose credibility if it doesn't find new tricks. We can see this in Japan right now. Japanese games are becoming less popular. They're losing to the shooting games I discussed in my previous post, but sooner or later we'll get tired with yearly installments of Call of Duty. I don't necessarily think that esoteric is the direction the industry needs to take. I'd simply like to see games mature a little more. Games can tell better, more thoughtful stories than they stories than they are right now, and this is something I'd like to see. Not everything needs to be Braid. Otherwise, we'd all get sick of it. Some people may already be sick of puzzle platformers (I'm not, they're more varied than the constant flow of action games. I'll say again that I totally agree with the idea that games are not simply interactive movies. They're more than just digital theme park rides. I want to see developers take interactivity, and use it in new ways to tell a story or present an idea in a way that no movie could dream of doing. I realize that Blow has one game under his belt, but that doesn't mean I don't support his hope for the future of video games, and wish him success in his artistic endeavors.

I have this friend who thinks he's a real intellectual because he spends months thinking about some lame shit and coming to some obvious conclusion that most of us were born with the knowledge of; the guy's a real fucking idiot. This article and Jonathan Blow remind me of him.

@BoG said:

@SeriouslyNow: No, I'm totally aware that he's not the only person who wants video games to be more than what they are. I wouldn't even call Braid my favorite "art" game. I'm not saying that gaming is losing credibility, I'm saying that it is going to lose credibility if it doesn't find new tricks. We can see this in Japan right now. Japanese games are becoming less popular. They're losing to the shooting games I discussed in my previous post, but sooner or later we'll get tired with yearly installments of Call of Duty. I don't necessarily think that esoteric is the direction the industry needs to take. I'd simply like to see games mature a little more. Games can tell better, more thoughtful stories than they stories than they are right now, and this is something I'd like to see. Not everything needs to be Braid. Otherwise, we'd all get sick of it. Some people may already be sick of puzzle platformers (I'm not, they're more varied than the constant flow of action games. I'll say again that I totally agree with the idea that games are not simply interactive movies. They're more than just digital theme park rides. I want to see developers take interactivity, and use it in new ways to tell a story or present an idea in a way that no movie could dream of doing. I realize that Blow has one game under his belt, but that doesn't mean I don't support his hope for the future of video games, and wish him success in his artistic endeavors.

Puzzle platformers have been around a very very long time. Hell, in some ways you could even call the ancient Sokoban that type of game, let alone actual 20+ year old games like Impossible Mission, Solomon's Key or Lode Runner and that's only talking about those games which have remained in the public's eye for a variety of reasons, there are hundreds if not thousands of puzzle platformers which have been forgotten or overshadowed. Puzzle platforming is a very old gaming trope and so I find it hard to take Jonathon Blow seriously when he dances in the exhumed corpse of a bygone era and then complains that the industry lacks innovation and that people who enjoy games as they are in the current trend (and that's all it really is, again, for a variety of reasons) are stupid and lacking in taste. I will certainly not begrudge him his opinion and in many ways I agree that there is a lack of focus on writing and character development vs simplistic exposition tropes and m0ar splosions but, again, that's not a reflection of his talents of perception. It's de rigeur in an industry which appeals to a very broad cross section of audiences and age groups; the common denominators will be simpler fare. Look at Hollywood, it produces a huge variety of films but what really earns them the most money in the most consistent manner is action summer blockbusters and chick flicks, many of which have interchangeable stories and characters. That doesn't mean for a second that Hollywood is dead creatively (though a lot of 'journalists' will say so while they call out references to Arrested Development, Curb your Enthusiasm and Always Sunny in The Place Where Forrest Gump Died of AIDS -- conveniently forgetting that all of that either comes from or is greenlit by Hollywood) it just means that by and large people don't want gourmet meals; they want simple fare which is easily digestible and the same is equally true of games.

Jonathon doesn't have a very broad pallet but he knows he's sick of fast food and good for him. I am too but that doesn't mean that I will then say that everyone who isn't sick of it is killing MY tastebuds and damaging the restaurant business.

I didn't like Braid. I thought it was pretty ordinary, both in concept and gameplay. I have no interest whatsoever in '' the witness''. I also chuckled when he said he didn't care about money, but he goes out and buy a 150,000$ car.

@Milkman said:

Blow may come off as a snob or crass but the fact is that the man's a genius. He's one of the few truly creative people in this industry right now so no matter how much a jerk he may seem, he still has my infinite respect. Besides, anyone who listened to his appearance on the Bombcast last E3 should know that he came off as a pretty cool dude so I wouldn't judge him based on one article.

How is it a fact that he's a genius? I still don't see it. He made a good 2D platformer but so have a bunch of other people. I wouldn't count Jenova Chen as a genius but he created Journey which is probably my GOTY so far and provided one of the most intense emotional experiences I've had in a game. People throw around that term way too often and I definitely don't think it applies in Blow's case.

Jonathan Blow sounds like a pretty cool guy. I can see myself enjoying his discourse even if I disagree with some of his key beliefs. The writer of the article, however, comes off as a bit of a nonce.