
(2013) Jonathan Blow – Game design: the medium is the message - ronjouch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc
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ronjouch
Excerpt I particularly enjoyed, especially the parallel to junk food and
eating hygiene at the end, because it explains the confusion still often
encountered when arguing that video games can be (at least) as human, moving,
emotional, empathetic as other cultural forms. Transcription mine, as truthful
as I could, sorry for typos.

 _If you 're a game player and you're playing this kind of Candy Crush games
right now, just know that what you're doing is the new version of watching Bad
TV in the 70s._

 _Just like you don 't necessarily know right now this is like Bad TV, people
watching Six-Million-Dollar Man in the 70s were not cognitively aware how
terrible that show was most of the time. It's only in retrospect that we can
stand where we are now, look back and say _"Wow that show was terrible" _.
Same with these games: you 're swimming in them, so you can't see how bad they
really are. And just like I can look back at the 80s and say _"Man, I can't
believe I spent so many hours watching frickin' Knight Rider, Airwolf and all
that stuff" _, it 's going to be very easy to look back in 15 years and say
_"I can't believe I played so many of these illusionary treadmill games" _._

 _And a common response to that kind of statement is:_ "You know, I sort of
hear what you are saying but I don't believe it because when I'm playing a
game like Candy Crush, I'm having fun, and there's nothing wrong with that."
Note this is also what designers say: _" Well people have fun playing, who are
you to judge?"_.

 _And it 's like, well, sort of, but in other areas of life we don't have this
level of confusion. A lot of people going to McDonald's and eating fries will
tell you they taste good. But there's not really any confusion that this is
good food, right? Nobody thinks this is good food! Nobody thinks you should
eat this everyday! But in games that level of clarity hasn't been reached
yet._

 _The nice thing, though, if you 've played this kind of Candy Crush games, is
to know there's actually better stuff out there. Stuff that can actually speak
to you as a human being beyond just a bundle of reflexes that can be
psychologically manipulated. And if you're playing this Candy Crush kind of
games, it at least means you might be a little bit interested in games to
begin with. So, if you want it, with a little bit of scouting and some good
advice, you can find the good things on the opposite side of the spectrum. And
you might find them much more interesting; or maybe not and maybe you'd go
back playing Candy Crush, who knows? But it's a possibility._

