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Games are not art — they're improve. Information technology just depends on whom y'all ask.

At that place's this on-again, off-over again argument within the intelligentsia as to whether games should be placed on the same pedestal as books, movies, music, and paintings. Just even the newest of the accepted fine arts, movies, take had at to the lowest degree a century to develop.

Conventional videogames–and I'thou taking Pong, the equivalent of cave drawings, as my starting point here–commenced less than 40 years ago. In that time, games have mimicked movies, electronically emulated books, and tried their mitt at playing on some emotional heartstrings. The big difference is that nigh conventional art forms are passive and two-dimensional experiences: You sit in forepart of and soak in whatever the artist presents you with. Videogames endeavor to create an interactive experience that puts the viewer/ role player in control of the palette.

Enter Shanghai-born Xinghan "Jenova" Chen, creative manager of ThatGameCompany. Since earning his graduate degree from the University of Southern California Film School's Interactive Media program, he has helped craft several elementary-but-surreal game projects that do more than cater to a twitch response. His thesis project, Cloud, floated forth, accumulating a post-obit on the indie gaming scene. Flow cast players equally an ever-evolving single-celled organism–and that, no doubt, inspired the first stage in Spore. The best way to describe Chen's latest game, Blossom: Information technology's a first-person gardener. And it'due south well-worth the $ten request price at Sony's PlayStation Store.

The levels, if you lot choose to phone call them that, are the dreams of flowers. You lot are the wind, fulfilling bloom fantasies–yeah, it sounds kind of strange. But merely try it. This is a Zen do with an occasional trophy for completing a task. A meditation pool with an endpoint. More than important, it passes my all-of import "married woman test": She was entranced as she watched me play, until finally she yanked the controller out of my hand to effort her luck with it. The last time I got that kind of response out of her was when BioShock came out.

But dorsum to the old "games-versus-fine art" argument (I'm looking at you, Ebert). I spent some fourth dimension chatting with Chen recently about the state of gaming and how (if at all) information technology'southward maturing. Here'southward what we came up with:

A Boy and His Flower

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

Jenova Chen: Bloom is made with a different mentality. It's a prophylactic, warm feel. It'southward like a verse form or dance that uses symbolism and scenery to give the player a comforting backdrop.

PCW: And I gauge that this would make yous the choreographer?

JC: [laughs] Yeah, 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 not only to play, but to picket.

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

JC: The finish goal of the histrion is to make the world a better place. The player is the consciousness of nature. Yous're living through the dreams of flowers sitting in pots. Gamers call them levels, but each of the dreams for the different flowers has different goals. The Rose, for instance, sees a desaturated, drab world of concrete but wants to add color everywhere. As you complete the dream of one flower, the 2d flower sprouts and fills in a certain attribute of life. The gameplay is that you're this consciousness, this desire. Y'all're bringing life into the world–not the guy killing aliens.

We thought of this like a picture experience. You could probably finish this in ii and half hours, merely yous really get a lot more out of the game afterward you lot've finished and come back to revisit each flower's dreams. You find more than to explore and play more. It volition be a expert therapy–to heal yourself and reflect on things.

PCW: How did you come up with the idea of making a game near flowers, anyhow?

JC: I grew up in a metropolis, in Shanghai. I was surrounded by skyscrapers and people. I was never surrounded by nature. When I was on my fashion into Los Angeles, I saw this windmill farm. Grass fields, bluish sky–I'd never seen these things earlier. Where I lived the sky was purple. So, as an urban human, I was attracted to these things I hadn't really seen earlier. When yous actually go into nature and go hiking, yous actually start missing the urban center and the people. So I wanted to create a space like a window from your living room, and you go surrounded by nature. Meanwhile, you still feel safe and warm. It's a harmony between nature and urban life.

PCW: Normally, games like this don't announced on store shelves…

JC: That's because digital distribution allows for more risk-taking. It allows small evolution houses to accept chances without having to score funding to publish the game on discs. That cost forces you lot to brand sacrifices along the way. Information technology makes you cut costs, enforce deadlines and transport a game that you might not be as proud of. You merely can't run that take a chance. For a game like Menses, information technology only cost between 500 and 600k, not fifty-fifty a meg. [Ed. note: And that'due south gone on to huge success.] Sony's been smashing to work with in this respect and has been very supportive both with Flow and now Flower.

Selling Games Short

JC: I think I'm pretty stupid to showtime a company. I left a lead designer chore at Maxis working on Spore to found ThatGameCompany. I was trying to find someplace that was doing what I wanted to exercise. Nobody was.

PCW: What was missing?

JC: I meet entertainment as something that feeds you lot–similar nutrient or water, merely for your emotions. Videogames used to be a software niche…but it isn't fully mature yet. The difference between a new medium and a mature medium is based upon the multifariousness–more than than merely i or 2 emotions. In that location aren't simply scary books or movies. Or lamentable songs. Games are even so largely seen every bit a toy and not just by the mainstream audience, but by some developers every bit well.

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

JC: Well, the people who accept a new technology are the younger ones — the ones willing to adapt. That's why the first games mostly catered to kids. In order for the business to succeed, they've needed to focus on the kids. To a degree, it'due south all the same that way. Kids like flashy imagery and colorful cartoons. And as they become older, they like more competition and to be more powerful. Many games are based on this empowerment.

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

JC: Yeah, no one asks you lot if you lot're a movie watcher or if yous're a reader, but when information technology always comes to games, y'all're a gamer. That's because we've got a means to become. People use phrases like "cool" and "fun," only seeking a more than sophisticated audience means doing more. People read a book, for case, but there's this thought that they will absorb something from it. Something mentally stimulating that they volition be able to utilise elsewhere.

PCW: At to the lowest degree some games strive to exercise more than, only I'd have to agree that at that place'due south all the same a lopsided focus on something similar graphics.

JC: If you think about it, most movies are divided by feelings. Games are divided by technologies–or the skills that they examination. That ofttimes casts games as dismissible pastimes. Think of game blueprint every bit a bucket. Crytek created a beautiful engine and Crysis looks realistic and expert. But if the story doesn't ascension to the same level every bit those graphics, it feels like an uneven effort 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, we don't have the luxury to pile up one characteristic like, say, graphics or story and focus on the whole package. We need to keep things concise.

PCW: Concise is one way to put it. Hither'southward how your games piece of work: Tilt the PS3'south Sixaxis controller to move and printing a single push. No instructions, no tutorial, you just drib players into the globe.

JC: We need to provide content exterior the cherry zone and then that adults and people that unremarkably wouldn't think to grab a controller, would. And when they do grab the controller, make information technology elementary to understand. At outset, nosotros tried different gameplay with complex controls–fifty-fifty with health points–merely 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's why there are no voices, no words, and no instructions.

Games, the New Movies

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

JC: When films first appeared, it was this make-new medium that started as a technology innovation. Sophisticated storytelling came subsequently. Information technology'due south easier to sell a technology if yous evoke fundamental feelings. If you lot look at some of the earliest films, like a French one that captured a train coming through a tunnel, it scared people out of their seats. Don't games sometimes become those aforementioned reactions?

PCW: No arguments about games tapping fear and adrenaline. That, they've got down. But using that film comparing, accept 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 upwards 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 motion-picture show school, people were surprised that there actually was a school for film. Now, people are reacting that same way to game schools. In school, nosotros studied all these mediums–storytelling, psychology…and I think, every bit a result, when I mention some ideas to current game designers, they'll say, "Oh, this sounds cool, but is it fun?"

I approximate my reply would be that we're at the bespeak where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are coming out of picture show schoolhouse.

PCW: Yous heard it here first–THX1138 and The Duel, coming to a panel nearly you before long! Seriously, though, at that place is this dismissive attitude toward gamers. Do you lot think this next generation of designers will alter people's minds about games?

JC: People coming out of game design schools are at present thinking nigh games differently than those that've come before. Nosotros hope that games will become more respected. In Nippon, everyone reads manga–it'due south 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 unlike footstep–and I don't want to see games get lumped into that same, immature category.

PCW: Sad for the clichéd question, but tin a videogame make you lot cry yet? As well if the game is too tough, that is….

JC: There are moments in gaming where y'all'll empathize with a character and mayhap feel a trivial sad. Well, videogames accept made people cry. It'southward like shooting fish in a barrel to cry if you've experienced something deep and emotional. A role-playing game in China I played fabricated me cry–even if it'south cliché–merely as a child, if you're exposed to something for the first time and conveys a story. If you've never read Shakespeare and someone slips Romeo and Juliet into a game, the first fourth dimension you run into information technology somewhere is bound to brand you cry. The medium improves past the kids who go moved and are motivated to make their ain games.

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

JC: I force myself to play some games…like Concluding 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 simply give upward. The chore of making your grapheme gain more experience to complete the game had no relevance to real life. And that is where a lot of games lose people.

PCW: Cheers, Jenova.

Peradventure office of the problem is that they are called "games." Snobs turn their olfactory organ up and think of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 or something–and instantly file it in the category of mindless diversions. Their loss. Y'all got a better name for videogames? Allow me know!

Until next time…

Need even more nerdity? Follow Casual Friday columnist and PC World Senior Writer Darren Gladstone on gizmogladstone on Twitter for more than time-wasting tips.

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

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