Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow

Blow in November 2008
Born 1971 (age 44–45)
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Occupation Video game programmer and designer

Jonathan Blow (born 1971)[1] is an American independent video game programmer and designer. He is best known as the creator of Braid, which was released in 2008 and received critical acclaim. His latest game, The Witness, was released to critical acclaim in 2016.

For many years Blow wrote the Inner Product column for Game Developer Magazine. He was the primary host of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop each March at the Game Developers Conference, which has become a premier showcase for new ideas in video games. In addition, Blow was a regular participant in the Indie Game Jam. Blow is a founding partner of the Indie Fund, an angel investor fund for independent game projects.

Early life and education

Blow was born in 1971. Blow says he started to "check out" from his parents as early as elementary school. His mother was an ex-nun who constantly reminded her son about the imminent coming of Jesus and would later disown Blow's older sister for coming out as a lesbian in the mid-80s. Blow's father worked all day as a defense contractor and would come home to be alone in his den, where children were not allowed. Blow would say in an interview with The Atlantic, "Early on, I detected that there weren't good examples at home, so I kind of had to figure things out on my own ... I had to adopt a paradigm of self-sufficiency."[2]

Blow studied computer science and creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley and was president of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association for a semester. He left the university in 1994, a semester before he would have graduated.[2][3][4]

He worked in San Francisco in various contracting jobs, including one with Silicon Graphics to port Doom to a set-top device, until forming the game design company Bolt-Action Software with Bernt Habermeier in 1996.[4][5] Their initial game project was to be a hovertank-based combat game called Wulfram, but at the time, the video game industry was undergoing a transformation of focusing heavily on three-dimensional graphics, making it difficult for them to complete the project; the team was forced to take some online database work to cover their expenditures. Subsequently, in the wake of the crash of dot-com bubble, they opted to fold the business after four years in 2000, with them $100,000 in debt.[2][4]

Following Bolt-Action, Blow continued to perform contract work for companies like Ion Storm, and writing for industry publications such as Game Developer Magazine.[4] He also worked on a project with IBM to create a technology demo similar to the Wulfram idea that would highlight the features of the Cell processor that IBM was collaborating on, which would become a part of the PlayStation 3. Blow attempted to get additional funding to turn the demo into a full game from both Sony and Electronic Arts but was unsuccessful.[4]

Career

Braid

Main article: Braid (video game)

In December 2004, feeling inspired during a trip in Thailand, Blow made a prototype for a time manipulation puzzle platformer game. The demo had crude graphics, but featured the ability of the player to rewind all the objects on screen backwards in time to a previous state. Encouraged by feedback from his peers, Blow worked on the game from about April 2005 to about December that year before having the final prototype of his game, titled Braid. This version won the Independent Games Festival Game Design Award at the 2006 Game Developers Conference.

He continued work on the game mostly focusing on art and music while polishing some of the design until its release in 2008 on Xbox Live Arcade. By then, Blow was $40,000 in debt[2] and had invested $200,000 into the game's development.[6]

The game was released on August 8, 2008 to critical acclaim and achieved financial success, receiving an aggregate score of 93% on Metacritic, making it the top-rated Xbox Live Arcade game. Braid was purchased by more than 55,000 people during the first week of release.[7] Blow recalled that he didn't receive any money until one day he saw a lot of zeroes in his bank account.[2]

The Witness

Announced in August 2009,[8] The Witness has been Blow's recent work. It's a 3D first person puzzle game in which a player is stranded on an island, trying to solve various maze puzzles. Like Braid before it, Blow has invested his own money—reportedly $2–3 million.[9]

Early public reaction to preview footage resulted in underwhelming assumptions that the game would simply be "solving simple maze puzzles." Blow has responded by saying that footage does not capture the problem solving process that goes on in the player's mind like in his previous game Braid, and that he "wouldn't make a game about solving a series of rote puzzles."[10]

In previews of The Witness (often at noisy conventions), Blow has had journalists play the game by themselves in a quiet environment so as to fit the tone of the game's design. There has been praise of the game's previews,[11][12] notably Kirk Hamilton from Kotaku calling it "an exercise in Symphonic Game Design."[13] The Witness is a PlayStation 4 and PC exclusive.[14]

Blow reinvested all of his remaining profit from Braid into The Witness, and had to borrow funds when his own ran out.[15]

Other work

In March 2010, Blow, along with several independent game developers including Ron Carmel and Kellee Santiago, became a founding member of the Indie Fund, an angel investor fund for independent game projects.

In 2012, Blow was one of the subjects of the independent documentary film, Indie Game: The Movie, where he discussed his views on the role of independent video games and his work on Braid.

In September 2014, Blow began work on a new programming language called JAI based on ideas he had previously expressed about video game development.[16][17] The language is a work-in-progress and is currently active.

Philosophy and views

Blow has spoken many times about his views on independent video games both in interviews and in public speeches, although he has said on his blog[18] that he has got what he wanted out of conferences from speaking at them. For his sometimes controversial views, he has received praise, notably being called "the kind of righteous rebel video games need"[19] and "a spiritual seeker, questing after truth in an as-yet-uncharted realm."[2]

Blow often speaks of the potential for games to be more. He has said that he tries to make games that are more adult for people with longer attention spans[20] and noted that games could have a "much bigger role" in culture in the future, but current game development does not address this potential, instead aiming for low-risk, high-profit titles.[21] Additionally, formerly being a physics major, Blow has expressed that games could examine the universe in similar ways that a physicist could.[22]

In referring to the progression of development in his games, Blow stated at the PlayStation Experience that he prefers to, "keep them playable and just make them better." This was stated during the live-cast panel while overseeing Justin Massongill on the playable demo. [23]

Blow has spoken out against some games for immoral game design. On World of Warcraft, he has said it causes societal problems by creating a false image of the meaning of life, calling it "unethical."[24] On Farmville, he has said that the design of the game reveals the developers' goal to degrade the quality of players' lives, ultimately calling it "inherently evil."[25]

Despite Braid's success on the platform, Blow has claimed that Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade certification process would turn away developers because "they kind of make themselves a pain in the ass" and that they would lose market share to Steam as a result.[26]

References

  1. ↑ "Is Braid pretentious? Creator Jonathan Blow answers his critics". GamesRadar. 2011-08-09. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Most Dangerous Gamer". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
  3. ↑ Jonathan Blow: California Dreamin', Hrej.cz (Czech)
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Machkovech, Sam (2015-09-18). "The man and the island: Wandering through Jonathan Blow’s The Witness". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2015-09-18.
  5. ↑ "Jonathan Blow (Person)". Giant Bomb. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  6. ↑ Gibson, Ellie (2009-03-25). "GDC: Braid cost 200k to make, says Blow •". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  7. ↑ "Braid » Blog Archive » Stats: The First Week of Braid". Braid-game.com. 2008-08-13. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  8. ↑ "GameSpy: Johnathan Blow Announces New Game - Page 1". Uk.pc.gamespy.com. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  9. ↑ Kuchera, Ben. "The PA Report - Jonathan Blow is betting $2.5 million you’ll like The Witness as much as Braid". Penny-arcade.com. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  10. ↑ Blow, Jonathan (October 19, 2010). "About the Blue Mazes". Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  11. ↑ Rubens, Alex (2012-03-15). "The Witness for Xbox 360 - Preview - The Witness Preview - How to Unbraid Modern Game Design". G4tv.com. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  12. ↑ "GDC: Witnessing Jonathan Blow's The Witness". Destructoid. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  13. ↑ 3/15/12 8:00pm 3/15/12 8:00pm. "Jonathan Blow's The Witness is an Exercise in Symphonic Game Design". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  14. ↑ Gibson, Ellie. "PlayStation 4 Press Conference Live Report •". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  15. ↑ Parkin, Simon (2016-01-29). "The Prickly Genius of Jonathan Blow". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  16. ↑ Wawro, Alex (2014-09-19). "Video: Jon Blow on building a new programming language, called Jai, for games". Gamasutra. UBM Tech. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
  17. ↑ Blow, Jonathan (2014-10-31). "Demo: Base language, compile-time execution". YouTube. Google. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
  18. ↑ "The Depth Jam". The-witness.net. 2012-05-29. Retrieved 2014-06-18. After about eight years, though, [being a conference presenter] ran its course and I had gotten the bulk of what I was going to get from this arrangement.
  19. ↑ Jonathan Blow, Opinionated Creator of Two Video Games, is 'Attempting to be Profound' http://kotaku.com/5829591/jonathan-blow-opinionated-creator-of-two-video-games-is-attempting-to-be-profound
  20. ↑ Stephen Totilo. "Jonathan Blow, Opinionated Creator of Two Video Games, is 'Attempting to be Profound'". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  21. ↑ "Jonathan Blow on future of video game industry". CBS This Morning. CBS. 2012-08-13. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  22. ↑ IndieCade 2011: Jonathan Blow & Marc Ten Bosch on YouTube
  23. ↑ Davidson, Joey. "Hands-on with The Witness on PS4". PlayStation.Blog.
  24. ↑ "MIGS 2007: Jonathan Blow On The 'WoW Drug', Meaningful Games". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  25. ↑ "Jonathan Blow interview: Do you believe social games are evil? "Yes. Absolutely."". PC Gamer. 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  26. ↑ "Interview: Jonathan Blow - Xbox Live Arcade 'A Pain In The Ass' For Indies". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2014-06-18.

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