Reading this article, I find it a little hard to follow. I don't know if that's due to the fact that they aren't native English speakers, it has been translated, or if they are just that nuts, but I feel like I'm missing something from everything they say. I feel like I'm just missing something in this conversation. I feel like they drift from topic to topic in a seamless and jarring transition about things that I... I really can't even begin to grasp! I'm not saying I'm stupid here, I'm not, I just have a hard time comprehending the way this interview is moving.
So, what I have learned about this that really jumps out at me is how happy they are to be isolated from other video games, and other media in general! Quite frankly, I find it nothing short of horrifying that an artist would be happy to be isolated from the rest of his medium. Art is built on experiences, it's built on what you know and what you see, and that the tots are happy to be in their own little bubble, carefully isolated from the influence of IDEAS is really disturbing! I can't think of a filmmaker, musician, artist, or writer who would dare to be so bold as to say that they enjoy an isolation from the rest of their fellow artists. I know they see the industry as a corrupting influence, but they have to be aware of it if they hope to rebel against it with any degree of success! You can't be the un- to games if you don't know what games are! Some snide remarks on how they are trashy low culture crap doesn't count! Play them, hate them, EXPERIENCE SOMETHING YOU EMPTY SHELLS. I don't know if this is what they mean, because again I'm having a hard time understanding them, but it seems as though they are very eager to just ignore what's going on because a few extreme examples have left a bad taste in their mouth.
I think all of those things can be expressed with things that are very much unique to the medium, and all that. And I would actually argue that gameplay is one of the strange components that is not unique to the medium, that comes from that old age-old history of playful interaction between humans, with sports. It, in and of itself, is an alien factor. I'm not against alien factors. I really think we should embrace as much as we can, and mix it all up.
Reading this, I froze up. And I don't mean in the 'Oh, Sam, that's so whacky to imply that what they said was so silly that you reacted to it in such a way!' I read this as if someone had handed me a card that said 'Your family has died in an accident, I am very sorry.' It's that startling realization that just causes a shut down followed by a panicked reaction as you reread it in disbelief, hoping that somehow you are misinterpreting the very plain message being delivered to you.
Being a game is the alien aspect to video games.
I'm not trying to be cute or snarky here, I'm legitimately having a hard time parsing this because it's so far flung from the way I think and just feels so incredibly aggravating to consider. It's like these people are talking about how they are novelist who absolutely detest having to use written language to convey their stories in books. It's just so bizarre...
They're taken for granted, but within very strict limitations. Like, you can't really experiment with that. So, if you deviate from the convention, players will respond, "Oh, that's bad!" Try doing AWSD, and change it to AZWD or something. People would freak out! And I would call that an aesthetic assessment, actually. Aesthetic appreciation is also about recognition...
You know, I remember a while on /v/ someone was trying to convince everyone to switch their key bindings on all games with this configuration to ESDF rather than WASD, or something similar. Some people prefer it, and they can defend why they do. They say it's a lot easier to reach Shift, Control, and Alt this way and that it allows your fingers to rest in a more natural position. Personally, it makes my ring finger hurt.
What the tots suggest is that we do this because it would be crazy, and because it would just knock those FPS kiddies square on their ass as we enjoy some high context amusement at their expense. It baffles me to think how the human hand could contort to play with the bindings they are suggesting. Now, I'm sure this was just said on the fly to illustrate how defying conventions is jarring to the audience, but I think it demonstrates a key difference between how I, a normal human being, deviates from the tots. I need reason and I need sense. I need to know why something is being done and I need it to be adequately defensible for me to consider it. I would like to think that that is the nature of progress in art. Radical, unsupportable deviations from the status quo will surely shock people but they won't really accomplish anything in the grand scheme of the medium. When artists simply think 'Wouldn't it be crazy if..." they can create something weird, interesting, and unique. When artists then thinks "I'm going to do something crazy because..." It becomes a lot more important to the medium as a whole, and becomes a piece that is reflective on where the artform is and where it can become.
It just feels like the sort of people who don't have a real grip on art, the kind of people who think Picasso painted those chicks all ugly because he was just soooooo cuh-razy and we like it because it's in a museum. Their art has no consideration of where their medium is or how it got there, which is something that a radical, sweeping change NEEDS to have to sustain it.
Another thing I don't like is the creation of this sort of mystique they have. That they are the underdog outsider trying to take theirs in a world out to get them. It's a cheap ploy to get the viewer to sympathize with them, who has been trained to root for the unappreciated artist trying to make it in a world that may not understand his genius, but soon will!
SHORT VERSION:Tots are ill-equipped to make video games because they are babies who poop hard in their diapers and cannot understand them.
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Just wanted to say, didn't have a lot of time to write and just wanted to kill twenty minutes and give my impression on the article. Kind of didn't want to open up the can of worms of talking about what you guys are on, but I just want to say that everyone participating in this thread is doing a very good job of creating a very interesting read that proves to be very fascinating commentary. Funny how that works, it seems like threads about tots are always much more interesting than tots themselves! Thanks guys.
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