A lovely profile of the ever-fascinating game designer Jonathan Blow in the Atlantic magazine is bundled, online, with a sneer about the world’s non-Jonathan Blow video games.
The profile’s writer Taylor Clark is trying to establish what’s special about Blow and his intent to make games like Braid and the forthcoming The Witness use the distinct elements of the video game form to elucidate meaning in the player. Blow’s is the ambition of an artist who crafts with the seriousness of an artist who values the expression of ideas over the collection of income.
Blow doesn’t love many common video games, and he mocks the “shitty action movie” blueprint on which many are built. It’s the Atlantic‘s Clark, however, who swings the scythe between gaming’s good and bad in the video accompanying the piece. And it’s this video that lit up my Twitter feed yesterday with outrage from many corners.
[The Atlantic]
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