Jason Rohrer & Chris Crawford video

killingpeople

it's a long video. these two designers have an interesting discussion about game design, the industry, and such. it's a somewhat enjoyable and thought-provoking video you may want to check out.

http://www.offworld.com/2009/07/weekend-watching-even-further.html

Adam Curtis

Yea that was really interesting, thanks for sharing

Tulkamir

Hmmm, watching it now. Didn't realize who Jason Rohrer was until they introduced him...

I really dislike his stuff, and have found most of it/the culture around it incredibly pretentious while somehow also being quite shallow, despite it's supposed "depth"...

Be interesting to see if this changes my mind at all

kat

Maybe I'm missing the point of what they're saying but, if the mass-market largely consists of kids as consumers, exactly what is it they want to achieve with their work when the audience isn't especially capable of the kind of thinking and reasoning they want from audience participation with their games?.

I'm all for finding good and interesting ways to tell stories or provide interaction, not just with a game but also between other people, but I get the distinct feeling that in many respects they're both stuck in the past when, as the older chap said... adults were the only ones with computers and even then they were usually 'educated' individuals which then dictated the kind of complex mechanics you could explore. *shrugs*

Tulkamir

Nope... didn't change my mind at all. Maybe you guys got something from it I missed... but really it seemed to me to be a lot of back patting and comiserating without any real substance.

Especially given that a lot of the philosophies discused seemed to be without any sort of solid basis. Neither knew a thing about Pixel Junk Eden, they went and played for a couple of minutes, and began deconstructing the entire game? Flegh. And the hypocracy was fantastic.

I dunno, guess I have a different view on these sorts of things. Crawford deserves tonnes fo respect, but Jason has done nothing special that I've seen, except sell himself very well.

And seriously, the back patting and sucking up was ridiculous! (From both sides)

Tulkamir

Kat - in their defense a huge portion of gamers are adults, forget the exact numbers, but if I remember correctly it's a decent majority (and the average age continues to rise as more and more people who gamed as children get older).

However, you do bring up a good point with not understanding their audience. I mean, Jason sat there and talked about how complicated his game was, about how the majority of people who played it didn't get it, and then bitched that it wasn't accepted by the IGF... of course it wasn't! If your audience doesn't understand you, that`s called **bad design**.

[edit] -whoops, sorry, didn't realize I double posted

rasmus

I found it kinda awkward, and in the end, it didn't lead to much. I have a real problem with people that refuse to see the strength and uniqueness in the more reaction-based button-twitching aspects of gaming - I support the evolvement of the medium, but this video didn't make a very good case for it

killingpeople

what confuses me is that they can't do what they do and still respectfully nod to what they aren't. haters. they mad.

kwakkie

wow, the interaction between the two just screams anckwardness! They both seem to want to talk about their own opinion and experiences a little too much, so much that it isnt interesting to the viewer anymore. In the last 20 minutes it gets kind of annoying that Chris Crawford is trying to say something, but the other guy keeps interrupting him.

I had to read 2 Chris Crawford books in school, but I found them to be stating the obvious most of the time, kind of like the discussions they are having in this documentary...

anoon

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Lamont

I totally thought this was about cars... I DL'ed it and will watch on the Zune.

gauss

Thoughtful and interesting talk between two designers I'm interested in though may not agree with. My brother and I watched it while drinking a bottle of wine, take that you non-intellectual philistines!

Tulkamir

gauss - I'm curious as to what in the talk you found thoughtful? I've only seen people say things like that about it, never actually defining how it was thoughtful. Which makes sense, it was staged as if it were some intellectual or thoughtful video. I just didn't find that the content matched the staging.

To me most of the stuff that would be interesting was merely reitterated arguements that have been voiced to death for the past few years... so I didn't see thoughtful so much as redundant.

So yea, I'm kind of curious as to whether you found some interesting nugget of thought in it that I may have missed.

Microneezia

I liked this discussion. I think they stood on some solid ground here.... I believe that they just want more experimentation with interactivity, I think thats a decent enough goal. I dont think however that any of their games succeed at being that different from the rest of the industry, except for the appearance. They do succeed in removing that hideous thorn in their side - the flashyness and techyness of games- but then they fail to live up to their own high expectations - which is kinda sad when watching this... Its like they took away the "sugar" and didnt replace it with substantial enough experimental interactivity. I do agree with them that given the money spent in the industry we should have more interesting avenues and experimentation happening.

I saw the back patting as forgivable Tulkamir, this was the first meeting between 2 people that have known of each other from afar... 2 people that feel really isolated typically, but hear of another who may be sympathetic professionally- they both like each others work ect, BUT you can see behind the scenes that they cross each others ideas in some areas... This was overcompensated by excessive stroking. They were trying to get past the trivial PC stuff so they could continue the conversation and not have one or the other shut down from a random comment. Which happens a lot I think.

kwakkie

Tulkamir wrote: »

To me most of the stuff that would be interesting was merely reitterated arguements that have been voiced to death for the past few years... so I didn't see thoughtful so much as redundant.

I agree, and everytime it seemed like they were about to go deeper about an interesting subject the depth got lost because the other interrupts the one talking with "hey I want to sound smart too"-blabla.

PeterK

These two gentlemen are more than welcome to explore alternative paths of game development and interaction; it's good for everyone in the end. I hope they are successful at developing a new model/method of human/machine interface.

I don't agree with their analysis of current games, as it seems a very overpowering ego inspired coder rant. They more than once imply that art is trivial, and they somehow got more to the "core of a game" by removing/mitigating it.

I'll say this once, and quite damn loudly. "ART IS IT'S OWN JUSTIFICATION".

Art, 3d models, grand experiments in visual motion and form have not somehow "sullied" games. I take GREAT pleasure in the movement of a particle effect, either when creating it or watching it. I love the eb and flow of perfectly executed animation, and I find the colors of the universe a wondrous gift.

From my understanding of this video (Having watched it fully), Mr.Jason subscribes to a somewhat cliched "I'm different" social behavior. in 2009, I find his method of "Different" is cliche.

StJoris

gauss wrote: »

Thoughtful and interesting talk between two designers I'm interested in though may not agree with. My brother and I watched it while drinking a bottle of wine, take that you non-intellectual philistines!

Oh how sophisticated!

I really loved this talk though, spatiality in games imo is the bread and butter.
Can't however agree with Rohrer's design decision to remove all the distractions to suspend disbelief, much better solutions to that, like integrating the real with the virtual.

Anyone interested in the matter of spatiality in games, this is a must read book:
http://www.spacetimeplay.org/

whipSwitch

it was nice to hear what Crawford had to say about some things, from the perspective of someone who was around when this all really started. All of it was stuff you hear from other "old fart game designers", but it's always interesting to hear from the people who did something before you. The conversation about the "useless blood splatter" was a bit short-sighted, but he obviously isnt an artist. Rohrer on the hand, for whatever merit his thinking may have in places, has his head shoved so far up his own ass that he obliterates any kind of persuasive argument... The simple statement that "3D is a fad" is as ignorant as the "2d is dead" camp, and just demonstrates the complete lack of thought given to the matter.

<twitch>

Jeremy-S

Just watched it, and I appreciate you pointing to it, KP. I just couldn't get past all the pretension in both those guys. Crawford has his reasons for being pretentious, but coming from Rohrer, it seems like just another case of some granola eating jack ass trying to prove how much smarter, and therefor, better than you he is.

I thought it was rather telling of Rohrer when he said "3d is a fad" and everyone laughed at him, and he had to follow it up with "No, I'm being serious". Apparently by him being serious, we have to agree with him, and not find it funny.

I don't know, I'm not gonna pretend to be a game design genius, or even a student game designer, but those two are just way too "aren't I different? Doesn't that make me a smart revolutionary?" for me to give two shits what they have to say.

rooster

'im focused on games about interactivity..' *cut to passage.*

i heard you can go up, left, down *or right in passage.