More Famous Than Vanaman: Jonathan Blow

[modeps]

CBS makes me laugh.

Jonathan Blow, probably the most famous video game developer in the world, may also be the most feared.

I really, really loved Braid. As a game, as a story telling device, it was incredible in many ways and had, to this day, the single best ending of any game I've ever played. However despite my heaps of praise, I cannot for the life of me understand why Blow is getting the press he is getting both within and outside of the industry. Many developers go through their entire careers not hitting the heights Blow has, yes, but before we start proclaiming him Jesus, we should probably wait and see.

I'm personally very interested to see what happens with The Witness, but at face value it's tough for me to get overly excited about what, at face value, appears to be a Myst clone. In the video that I linked, Blow said that The Witness is "already better" than Braid. That's a pretty lofty claim.

[Ben X]

Who?

[Gwardinen]

I also don't necessarily understand why Blow gets the press he does. But even though he undeniably does get a lot of press, calling him "probably the most famous video game developer in the world" is just dumb. It seems likely that he's only really known to enthusiasts and people within the industry. Actually if I had to guess from the top of my head the game developer who's genuinely the most famous in the world at the moment, Cliffy B comes to mind. He's at a lot of mainstream celebrity events, and therefore gets coverage and exposure to people who aren't actively following the games industry. I have absolutely no idea whether he actually is the most famous and would never (especially not in an article) claim he is, but I'm willing to bet that way more people know of him than know of Jonathan Blow.

[much shorter]

I think Blow got lucky with the PR cycle surrounding Braid but I can't recall if/how he hit mainstream media during that time, it helps that he is a weird person and pretty outspoken. But yeah, I'd put my money on luck and weirdness.

[Merus]

I would have said the most famous game designer in the world was one of Will Wright, Sid Meier or Shigeru Miyamoto.

If it's not Mark Burnett.

But for a CBS piece mentioning a famous game designer as being one, I'm not going to quibble. After all, all it would take is a little bit of mainstream press for any game designer to become the most famous one.

I think Blow gets good press because he gives good quote and has a lot of industry exposure, and he makes games with that are very clearly the product of a particular person's mind. They feel less like the work of a corporation, which makes them easier to accept as a work by a creator.

[much shorter]

^^^ This is a better explanation than mine, he's got character and personality which shines through in what he makes, which I personally really like. Of course I might just be imposing my knowledge of Blow on his games or vice versa.

[I_smell]

I can honestly admit that I am petrifyingly terrified of Monday Blow, each and every waking moment of every day.

I added Jonathon Blow on Twitter around E3, because it was hilarious just how much he hated every Video game. Since then I've REALLY got into his school of thought and what he's all about; and he's totally right. Video games are stuck in their own dumb little bubble right now, and as much as everyone says we're branching out, it's happening so slowly.

It's really easy to joke about "oh everything's just a brown, gray first-person-shooter", but when you zoom out and look at how many games are built around collecting things, or hitting the centre of the bullseye, or getting to the end of the maze, it starts feeling sad. The scary things that people don't want to think about, like being alone or growing old, or losing sight of what you're doing, or facing that you're in denial, or over-analyzing your mistakes or all this heavy stuff that you CAN guide someone through in a Video game: nobody's even interested in trying it.

Jonathon Blow is about 40, he used to be a professional Counter-Strike player, but now he wants games to explore their potential for raising questions, and simulating thought-provoking experiences, and teaching people things they might not think about- so from that perspective I now GET why the industry is super frustrating to him.

.

. That's really long.

[hyretic]

I think Jonathan Blow's fame can be attributed to the fact that he loves to talk more than anything else. He's a journalist's dream. The people who are still famous without keeping up a stream of public dialogue would probably be more deserving of that title.

[Sno]

The guy has interesting things to say and knows how to be really articulate about those opinions, and i also think Braid is probably one of the cleverest puzzle games i've ever played, so Jonathan Blow is an ok guy in my book as things stand.

He is consistently misrepresented in interviews though, does he have anything to do with that, or is he just a victim of his public persona?

[elmuerte]

Blow is famous because people keep saying he's famous and people want to talk to famous people.

[Winks]

I think we may be concentrating on the less hilarious part of that quote. Most feared?

[I_smell]

As soon as I opened the tab with that photo of Jonathon Blow, I closed it right away. I don't even wanna THINK about his terrifying game design philosiphies this late at night. I wouldn't sleep!