Photo Wallpaper Stars the Game Planet Space Art Game Game

Games are not art — they're ameliorate. It but depends on whom y'all enquire.

There'due south this on-again, off-once again statement within the intelligentsia equally to whether games should be placed on the same pedestal equally books, movies, music, and paintings. But even the newest of the accepted fine arts, movies, have had at to the lowest degree a century to develop.

Conventional videogames–and I'm taking Pong, the equivalent of cave drawings, as my starting indicate here–commenced less than 40 years ago. In that fourth dimension, games have mimicked movies, electronically emulated books, and tried their paw at playing on some emotional heartstrings. The large difference is that almost conventional art forms are passive and ii-dimensional experiences: You sit in front of and soak in any the artist presents you with. Videogames attempt to create an interactive experience that puts the viewer/ player in command of the palette.

Enter Shanghai-born Xinghan "Jenova" Chen, artistic director of ThatGameCompany. Since earning his graduate degree from the Academy of Southern California Flick Schoolhouse's Interactive Media program, he has helped arts and crafts several simple-simply-surreal game projects that do more cater to a twitch response. His thesis project, Cloud, floated forth, accumulating a following on the indie gaming scene. Flow cast players equally an ever-evolving single-celled organism–and that, no doubt, inspired the first phase in Spore. The best style to describe Chen's latest game, Flower: It's a first-person gardener. And it'due south well-worth the $10 asking price at Sony'south PlayStation Store.

The levels, if yous choose to call them that, are the dreams of flowers. You are the wind, fulfilling bloom fantasies–yeah, it sounds kind of foreign. Only just try it. This is a Zen exercise with an occasional bays for completing a job. A meditation puddle with an endpoint. More than important, it passes my all-of import "wife test": She was entranced as she watched me play, until finally she yanked the controller out of my hand to try her luck with it. The last time I got that kind of response out of her was when BioShock came out.

Simply dorsum to the former "games-versus-art" argument (I'm looking at you, Ebert). I spent some fourth dimension chatting with Chen recently near the state of gaming and how (if at all) it's maturing. Here's what we came up with:

A Boy and His Blossom

PC Globe: How would you try describing Flower to someone? Is it a game, art, or something else entirely?

Jenova Chen: Bloom is made with a dissimilar mentality. Information technology's a condom, warm experience. It'south like a poem or dance that uses symbolism and scenery to give the player a comforting properties.

PCW: And I guess that this would brand you the choreographer?

JC: [laughs] Aye, we're not level designers. We provide all these moves, and because players are different, they will perform the moves differently. It's a game that is meant non merely to play, but to watch.

PCW: A game that you watch–technically, that'd make it art. As for the person who grabs the controls, let'south talk a little more than near the game itself.

JC: The cease goal of the player is to make the earth a better place. The thespian is the consciousness of nature. Yous're living through the dreams of flowers sitting in pots. Gamers call them levels, only each of the dreams for the different flowers has unlike goals. The Rose, for case, sees a desaturated, drab globe of concrete only wants to add color everywhere. Equally you lot complete the dream of i flower, the second flower sprouts and fills in a certain aspect of life. The gameplay is that you're this consciousness, this want. You lot're bringing life into the world–not the guy killing aliens.

We idea of this similar a moving-picture show experience. You lot could probably stop this in 2 and half hours, merely you really get a lot more out of the game after yous've finished and come back to revisit each flower's dreams. You find more to explore and play more. It will be a good therapy–to heal yourself and reflect on things.

PCW: How did you come upwardly with the thought of making a game nigh flowers, anyhow?

JC: I grew up in a city, in Shanghai. I was surrounded by skyscrapers and people. I was never surrounded past nature. When I was on my way into Los Angeles, I saw this windmill farm. Grass fields, bluish sky–I'd never seen these things before. Where I lived the sky was majestic. And so, as an urban homo, I was attracted to these things I hadn't really seen earlier. When you lot really go into nature and go hiking, yous actually start missing the city and the people. So I wanted to create a infinite like a window from your living room, and you lot go surrounded past nature. Meanwhile, you yet experience prophylactic and warm. Information technology's a harmony betwixt nature and urban life.

PCW: Normally, games similar this don't appear on store shelves…

JC: That's considering digital distribution allows for more than take a chance-taking. Information technology allows small development houses to take chances without having to score funding to publish the game on discs. That cost forces you to make sacrifices along the way. It makes you cut costs, enforce deadlines and ship a game that you might not be every bit proud of. Y'all just can't run that adventure. For a game like Flow, it but cost between 500 and 600k, non fifty-fifty a million. [Ed. note: And that's gone on to huge success.] Sony's been great to piece of work with in this respect and has been very supportive both with Menses and at present Flower.

Selling Games Short

JC: I think I'k pretty stupid to starting time a company. I left a lead designer job at Maxis working on Spore to constitute ThatGameCompany. I was trying to find someplace that was doing what I wanted to do. Nobody was.

PCW: What was missing?

JC: I see entertainment as something that feeds you–like food or water, simply for your emotions. Videogames used to exist a software niche…but information technology isn't fully mature nevertheless. The difference betwixt a new medium and a mature medium is based upon the diverseness–more than simply one or two emotions. There aren't just scary books or movies. Or deplorable songs. Games are withal largely seen equally a toy and not merely past the mainstream audition, but by some developers as well.

PCW: Wouldn't you say, though, that these days games are getting a piffling more than sophisticated?

JC: Well, the people who take a new technology are the younger ones — the ones willing to arrange. That'south why the starting time games mostly catered to kids. In order for the business to succeed, they've needed to focus on the kids. To a degree, it's still that way. Kids like flashy imagery and colorful cartoons. And as they go older, they similar more contest and to exist more than powerful. Many games are based on this empowerment.

PCW: And I guess that feeds into the stigma still fastened to games…and beingness a gamer.

JC: Yep, no 1 asks you if you lot're a moving-picture show watcher or if y'all're a reader, simply when it always comes to games, you're a gamer. That's because we've got a ways to go. People employ phrases like "cool" and "fun," but seeking a more sophisticated audience means doing more. People read a book, for example, but there's this idea that they will blot something from it. Something mentally stimulating that they will be able to utilize elsewhere.

PCW: At least some games strive to do more than, but I'd have to concord that there's still a lopsided focus on something like graphics.

JC: If you think about it, most movies are divided by feelings. Games are divided by technologies–or the skills that they test. That often casts games as dismissible pastimes. Think of game design as a bucket. Crytek created a beautiful engine and Crysis looks realistic and good. But if the story doesn't rise to the same level every bit those graphics, it feels like an uneven endeavor and things in the game spill over the sides. If the gameplay isn't as practiced, it doesn't feel right. Because [ThatGameCompany] is small, nosotros don't accept the luxury to pile up one feature similar, say, graphics or story and focus on the whole packet. We demand to keep things concise.

PCW: Concise is one way to put information technology. Here's how your games piece of work: Tilt the PS3's Sixaxis controller to move and press a single button. No instructions, no tutorial, yous merely drib players into the earth.

JC: We need to provide content outside the cherry-red zone so that adults and people that usually wouldn't think to take hold of a controller, would. And when they exercise catch the controller, make information technology unproblematic to empathise. At beginning, we tried unlike gameplay with complex controls–even with health points–but that didn't feel right for the emotions we wanted to convey. The music and ambiance combined with the visuals and controls convey more. That'south why in that location are no voices, no words, and no instructions.

Games, the New Movies

PCW: Since y'all're coming from the perspective of a USC Film School graduate, where would you say games are now compared to, say, movies?

JC: When films outset appeared, information technology was this brand-new medium that started every bit a technology innovation. Sophisticated storytelling came after. It'due south easier to sell a technology if you evoke primal feelings. If y'all look at some of the earliest films, similar a French i that captured a train coming through a tunnel, information technology scared people out of their seats. Don't games sometimes get those same reactions?

PCW: No arguments well-nigh games borer fear and adrenaline. That, they've got down. But using that film comparison, have we at least fabricated it out of the "talkies" stage?

JC: The game industry started in the '70s and has grown very quickly. The very first generation of filmmakers who grew up with films as kids–they went to universities and studied how to craft films. The George Lucases and Steven Spielbergs.

When George Lucas went to moving picture schoolhouse, people were surprised that there actually was a school for film. At present, people are reacting that same way to game schools. In school, we studied all these mediums–storytelling, psychology…and I think, as a result, when I mention some ideas to current game designers, they'll say, "Oh, this sounds cool, but is it fun?"

I guess my answer would be that we're at the point where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are coming out of moving-picture show school.

PCW: You lot heard information technology here first–THX1138 and The Duel, coming to a console near you soon! Seriously, though, there is this dismissive attitude toward gamers. Do you think this next generation of designers will change people'south minds about games?

JC: People coming out of game design schools are at present thinking about games differently than those that've come earlier. Nosotros promise that games volition go more respected. In Japan, anybody reads manga–it's a national art form. Successful businessmen and teenagers read them on the trains. In America, comic books are viewed as some nerdy activity. Why and then different? The content matured at a different pace–and I don't desire to meet games get lumped into that same, immature category.

PCW: Sad for the clichéd question, but can a videogame brand yous cry yet? Besides if the game is too tough, that is….

JC: There are moments in gaming where yous'll empathize with a character and maybe feel a little sad. Well, videogames have fabricated people weep. It'due south easy to weep if you've experienced something deep and emotional. A role-playing game in China I played made me cry–even if it's cliche–just as a kid, if you're exposed to something for the first fourth dimension and conveys a story. If you've never read Shakespeare and someone slips Romeo and Juliet into a game, the offset time y'all see information technology somewhere is spring to make y'all cry. The medium improves by the kids who get moved and are motivated to make their ain games.

PCW: How many times has it backfired, though? That the game gets in the manner of a good story?

JC: I force myself to play some games…like Final Fantasy XII. I had to struggle through because of all the [endless quests]. Even though I really wanted to know how the story ended, after a couple weeks I had to just give up. The chore of making your character gain more than experience to complete the game had no relevance to real life. And that is where a lot of games lose people.

PCW: Thanks, Jenova.

Peradventure part of the problem is that they are called "games." Snobs plough their nose up and recollect of Pac-Human on the Atari 2600 or something–and instantly file it in the category of mindless diversions. Their loss. You got a better name for videogames? Let me know!

Until side by side time…

Demand fifty-fifty more nerdity? Follow Casual Friday columnist and PC Globe Senior Writer Darren Gladstone on gizmogladstone on Twitter for more than fourth dimension-wasting tips.

ensigninceiren.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/533505/games_not_art.html

Share this post