I wonder, though, if he feels like he’s really succeeded in building games that he thinks people like him would be happy spending a lot of time with vs, say, listening to Animal Collective or watching Memento (his music & film examples). It seems very difficult to make a game that feels genuinely meaningful on an emotional level.. I can’t think of too many games that do this. Passage kind of works in that way, but it’s extremely short & constrained in scope.. not something one is likely to go back to to replay over and over or spend a lot of time thinking about/analyzing, as one might with a good book or film.

I like what he’s trying to do. I think he’s right that if we can’t make games that really connect emotionally with people then maybe games will be ignored by people who are looking for that kind of an experience.

That aside, I must admit that I really admire the path he’s chosen for himself. It’s an inspiration to see someone with a broad perspective seriously pursuing videogame creation free of the usual complications and compromises.

SUPERBROTHERS & THE 1 CONSOLE salutes him!

Also Jason Roher’s games definitely show that whatever his views on current games he knows and understands game mechanics well.

One difference between your example may be that while you weren’t reading those SF books I imagine you were still reading? I guess it’s partially the breadth of his dismissal that gets me.

In any case whatever he’s doing is clearly working for him.

So I forgive this in an artist — not so much in a person who’s primarily a commentator, like Crawford. It seems like they have a responsibility to know about the latest developments in the field (or at least check it with people that do).

There are several problems with that sort of dismissive view. If there are new games that he would find interesting there’s no way for him to know since he stopped looking. But say he’s right, even if he views all modern games as failures, there may be mechanics or ideas in them that he can learn from or be inspired by. At the very least knowing what they’re up to is useful in that they help mark out the territory of things that won’t work.

It reminds me of Chris Crawford’s book on game design. While talking about the lack of creativity in games he makes a list of monsters that you could put in a first person shooter that according to him have never been used. He then admits that he hasn’t played a shooter since Doom II. Of course several of the monsters have been used in some form, but unaware of this he goes on and on about how he’s so sure they haven’t.

Jason Rohrer talks a lot about this idea of ‘worth’ ie: ‘Is this videogame worth my time?’. As we grow older, our tastes change, and Rohrer (like Jonathan Blow) feels that while music and film have genuinely worthwhile experiences to offer to us at any age while, for many of us, videogames haven’t kept pace.

While I sympathize with his point-of-view in general, I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed to hear how broadly dismissive he seems to be about all of today’s videogames. He says the last console he owned was a Playstation 2, when he was in college, and that he doesn’t see any reason for someone like him – with many other commitments and interests – to consider purchasing another console. To him, ‘modern’ videogames seem to be the domain of overwrought cinematic blockbusters with very little that is meaningful or relevant to offer.

It’s an entirely understandable sentiment, and I must admit that it isn’t particularly easy to justify or rationalize the purchase of an expensive hunk of junk like the PS3, but I think a case CAN be made that worthwhile and interesting videogames ARE being made with increasing regularity these days, some of them ARE on consoles and a few of them ARE reaching an audience.

While they may not appeal to the ‘rules-as-art’ or ‘proceduralist’ crowd enough to justify the purchase of a fancy-pants console, I think Noby Noby Boy & flOwer have something of value to offer to people like Rohrer, and they probably shouldn’t be dismissed alongside more traditional cinematic blockbusters like Metal Gear Solid 4.

I don’t know if the podcast goes into it but he lives this sort of hard-core hippy back to the land lifestyle out in the country and uses almost no electricity. He easily wins the award for computer game developer with the smallest carbon footprint. Very inspiring but at the same time I’d have a hard time living such a stripped down lifestyle.