Journey creator: "Games are not good enough for adults"

Most video games are just not stimulating enough for grown adults, so says Journey creator Jenova Chen. Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Chen suggested that for games to appeal to a more mature audience they need to include more "relevant" themes. "My biggest complaint for computer games so far is they are not good enough for adults," he said. "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. Games have to be relevant intellectually. "You also need depth. You have the adventure - the thrill of the adventure - but you want the goosebumps too." That's clearly something Chen is shooting for with thatgamecompany's next project, which is still under wraps. "Can games make you and another human learn something intellectual and relevant from each other?" he asked. "Can games make you and another human experience an emotion that's deep enough to touch adults? I'm working on all of that. Making emotional games and making them intellectually relevant; making games where people can connect and come together." Thatgamecompany's last release, thoughtful PSN download Journey, picked up a glowing 9/10 from Eurogamer earlier this year.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-18-journey-creator-games-are-not-good-enough-for-adults

I think this is not only insulting to gamers, inplying they are not adults and devoid of an adult mind. It's also insulting to other developers. He's not the first Indies developer to talk as if he is some sort of Citizen Kane amongst shit. It's fairly easy to find articles from Jonathan Blow, blowing a lot of old shit as well.

When it comes to sophisticated games designed for an adult mind with "depth" and "adventure" that pertain to "real life". It isn't fluttering leaves or a time manipulating platformer, it's total war. When the title reads "Total War" people typically assume it means "scale" due to thousands of units on screen. Or the fact it's turn-based as well as realtime. This isn't the the entire truth of title though, "Total War" is actually attempting to show every conceivable aspect of war as the examples below show...

• Sex is used as a weapon.
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• Religion is used as a weapon.
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• Internal corruption is used as a weapon.
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• Family integration is used as a weapon.
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• Hostages.
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• General Loyalty.
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• Starvation is used as a weapon.
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• Misdirection.
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• Foreign trade as well as local.
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• Becoming Vassal for a clan.
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• Even, weather is used as a weapon.
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Everything I mentioned above, doesn't involve or require physical combat. If we did take combat into account, this blog post would probably consist of multiple decisions you make in Total War are, in the context of gameplay, more important and arguably more felt than that supposed open ended titles such as "mass effect" . An experienced agent, can cripple an army, cause mass rebellion or outside turn a region to your own side. Unlike "twitch" games, the agents operate on stats, the higher a level an agent is, the higher the chances of success. When one of your agents dies, that potentially 20+ hours of leveling down the tube. Agents dying in Shogun 2 can cause you to loose, period. They not only die by being killed by other agents, they can outright turn against you. Likewise, Shogun 2 uses the illusion of turns to encapsulates an extended time period, agents can die of old age. Indeed any character can. Generals start as 16 year old boys and die 60 year old men. They leave offspring who themselves become generals or daughters you can marry off to strengthen relations with other clans or adopt generals as part of your family If you simply leave a general to sit in a base, or a general constantly looses battles, they developed negative traits, which effect their loyalty, standing within provinces, effectiveness on the battlefield and effectiveness in handling royalties, troop replishment and so fourth.

Keeping units, any unit, alive, matters. Aside from the time it takes to replenish, they level up. Becomes strong, faster, better trains. Moral strengthens, lessening the chance they will route during a battle. Likewise with generals, leveling and keeping them alive, matters. Significantly. To the point a well developed general, with well developed troops, can defeat enemy units of much greater magnitude in number.

This is a very brief rundown of some the the open ended variables in Shogun 2, I have missed out (and probably regret) adding many others. Shogun 2 is a multiplayer game epic in scope. Educational while entertaining. Demonstrating the incredible visual awe of war arguably better than any war movie can. From the huge, thousand upon thousands of men battles, to singular management of people it goes to lengths. Heck, even to the point of have horses aimlessly wander around in panic when the rider has been killed, they too, pile as corpses along with the humans.

Two of the best discriptions come from "EUROGAMER" and "EDGE"

Eurogamer discribed this title as -

"In some ways, it's the closest we've come to the enormous social novel from the period after that which Empire chronicles: it's a Tolstoy-esque War and Peace of a game. Its problems may be the inevitable problems of trying something with such sheer scope. As such, if you want the breathtaking vision of the game, you have to accept the flaws in the details - for now, at least..."

Edge discribed it as -

"No other game takes on whole eras of combat with such a combination of respect and fetishism for the rules and wisdom of battle, and no series treats history like such a serious playground of possibilities, yet features such comic-book characters..."

It's also one of the few games that has transcended being a entertainment product into the realm of being used as a educational tool. Replicating historical battles for the history channel. Being used in another BBC television program once again attempting to replicate and demonstrate epic battles. Flight simulators and army simulators are typically used a training before becoming an entertainment product. With Total War, this was the other way around.

To sum up, this fellow can easily be shot down with many not a few pc titles. I simply chose Total War because it seemed like the most obvious choice, one i'm very familiar with and talk about with enthusiasm. Both newer and very old titles can be used to shoot down what he is saying. Planescape Torment for example. If this Chen fellow attempts to claim it isn't designed for an adult mind, lacks depth or adventure, then he is on another planet. Probably the same one as Jonathan Blow and David Cage.