Jon Blow’s Design Reboot
(Visited 6795 times) Game talk
Dec 022007
Jonathan Blow has posted the slides and audio to his talk “Design Reboot” from the Montreal conference.I spotted this over on Quarter to Three, where people in the comment thread are to my mind surprisingly resistant to what Jon is saying. Among other things, the comments are made that “videogames do not have the power to affect humanity.”
If that were the case, nobody would play them. 😛
I suspect that some of the reason for the resistance is that people don’t like being told that things they love can be bad for them…
5 Responses to “Jon Blow’s Design Reboot”
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[…] Jon Blow’s Design Reboot […]
First of all, I’m going to assume in good faith that Jim Preston applies some other definition to the word “humanity” than the rest of the world. Secondly, I’m going to presume that he doesn’t recognize that the individual is not a ship in a bottle, or a living, breathing genetically and memetically reproducing human being.
To claim that video games do not contribute to the shaping of humanity, are incapable of shaping humanity, and that asserting otherwise is laughably absurd is, as he wrote, laughably absurd. I should also note that Preston is guilty of the same omission of evidence that he accuses Jon Blow of leaving unresolved. Were I participating in the Quarter-To-Three forum, I would have quoted Preston’s denial and responded, “Where’s your proof?” I would have challenged him to test his hypothesis.
Perhaps in performing the necessary due diligence, he would learn at least three important things: how to write and present an engaging keynote speech; popular culture and mass media have a scientifically researched and documented effect on the quality of being human for people worldwide, and therefore, that empirical statement is a matter of fact, not of philosophy; and practice without a philosophical engine is not a human activity [at least of demonstrable competence.]
Several of his arguments remind me of people I encountered in college who believe, or believed, that only certain people are entitled to wax philosophical. Do the topics considered by professional philosophers not concern the issues that people face every day? Not everyone has published their opinion on these subjects in scholarly journals, but everyone capable of critical thought and rational action certainly has sufficient life experience to qualify for such discussion.
I’m also reminded of what John Smart once wrote to me in regards to criticism I sent to him. Paraphrased, he wrote that he disagreed with me if only because philosophers always tend to disagree, and that he wrote what he wrote not because of any particular strong desire but because the editors of the publication invited him to do so. John also admitted that the editors liking and publishing his work was good enough for him. Preston wants some sort of precision in presentation of thought from you and other designers that is unnecessary, even for “technically professional” philosophers.
You write that up as if you are surprised. Surely not.
Any activity that has a sub two second response time changes the behavior of the user. Figure frequency and amplitude for the rest. Welcome to the concepts of second-order cybernetics (See Norbert Wiener). If the game community is just catching on to this, they missed some vital reading at uni. See B.F. Skinner for the rest of the story.
How is it that any good GUI designer knows this and game designers don’t?
Expect parental reporting systems and NPO-led rating systems to be part of the virtual worlds business soon. Games already deal with the latter, of course. Then it becomes something parents have to pay attention to. If they don’t, kids won’t.
People really do resist change. Especially if they are successful in the old regime. And that goes for developers and gamers alike. Change means risk to their success. And let me remind people that the same gamers who are successful in the EQ clones are the ones who post the most opinions ….repeatedly. As far as developers go, show me one that’s not currently employed or seeking employment in the status quo, and I think I have a good chance of showing you one who’s more agreeable to change.
Something that really struck a cord with me was Lum’s comments that the EQ clones are what people want. I can see why he thinks so.
But there’s some guidelines that I believe in:
1) Fantasy swords and magic is the number one single desire for games, by far.
2) Developers are making what they want, and what they want is what they have experience in. The tried and true productions from single and multi-player gaming based on D+D and moving from stage to stage (level to level).
3) MMOs are a different animal by their nature as a massive social environment based around a single game. Or can be, and should be because of human nature and expectations.
4) Players are only playing the best available option. That doesn’t mean it’s what they prefer.
5) Statistics can be wildly off if they are based on false assumptions.
By the way, graphic designers have been discussing the morality and ethics of design for sometime. I’m sure product designers have as well. Granted, the context of these discussions is slightly different, but they’re still designers talking about design.
“Social responsibility” is the key term.
Just a quick search found:
In Search of Ethics in Graphic Design [http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/in-search-of-ethics-in-graphic-design]
Morals and Ethics in the Design Community [http://www.finamoredesign.com/FinaBlog/?p=132]
Information Design: A Graphic Designer’s Salvation [http://www.commarts.com/CA/coldesign/rogW_116.html]