Ironic, because Braid and its, at the time, popularity was almost single handedly responsible for the newborn Indie Dev scene becoming pretentious, fart sniffing garbage.
Because after it came out, and all the usual game journos jerked it off into everyone buying it, suddenly every game wanted to have their princess be the atomic bomb and the MC to actually be an evil incel TRP rapist the whole time. Games could be an exercise in "go fuck yourself" like his secret stars were and people would love it, you could make a generic garbage puzzle/walking game and as long as it had some big "relatable" twist it was GOTY.
So in a way, Braid itself laid the egg that would eventually blossom into Depression Quest and Gone Home creating Gamergate itself.
I also enjoyed it. It wasn't great and it got tiresome by the end, but I still played it through and can say it was a solid 7/10 elevated by being this "new thing called an indie game for 2$."
And exactly as you said, finding out the intention ruins that entirely and turns it to active hate.
Based on like 20 year memory it was something like "you are a creep stalker forcing yourself on this random woman in some sort of narcissistic hero fantasy. Also something something atomic bomb."
It can't be stated just how big this game was at the time. Literally everyone was talking about it, and then criticizing it, so eventually it just became "its just art man" so that Blow's pretentious ass could pretend it was deeper than it was and dodge infinite questions about it.
Honestly, I don't think he set it with that as the entire goal. He certainly just made a video game with no story or literally anything to it beyond the gameplay, but then he made up a bunch of stuff to make it seem more than that. Because there is literally nothing to suggest any of that until you hit the last few minutes. And even then its all metaphorical headcanons, because nothing is concrete. But that's what he leaned into and attached it to.
Oh, that. I thought you meant something more. I just took that to mean the artist-types had found video games. It didn't rise to the level of hate for me. Just contempt.
Gamergate was inevitable because game journos are 95% far left radicals while their (majority male gamer) audience leans at least slightly to the right. That sort of political and cultural divide simply isn’t sustainable, especially when journos believe it is their responsibility to inject their personal politics into their work.
Fast forward ten years and we get, essentially, gamergate 2, only this time it’s a conflict between far left western game developers and their “creeping further to the right” customer base. Once again, the leftists insist upon injecting their values directly into their work, and the consumers are rejecting the resultant “ideologically-possessed” product.
The inflection points and catalysts that kick off these culture wars are really immaterial. You can’t have these sorts of overriding cultural divides between groups that are expected to interact with each other on a daily basis. Eventually, you will have war.
Gamergate was inevitable because game journos are 95% far left radicals while their (majority male gamer) audience leans at least slightly to the right.
Gamergate was inevitable because Games Journalism had been colonized by far left radicals who failed to make it in actual journalism. They were actively, deliberately seeking to install themselves as tastemakers and gatekeepers for a multi-billion dollar industry and monetize that position by taking kickbacks, bribes and junkets from game publishers.
When the Gaming Press was founded, it was as "Enthusiast Press"; that is fans of computer games wrote about computer games for other computer gamers.
After Computer Gaming got big, especially after consoles brought computer gaming to a whole generation of tasteless mouth-breathing console 'tards, the AAA industry made bank out of capturing games magazines and then, later, games websites.
An AAA franchise released screen-shots and the tame gaming journos hyped up the upcoming release. They traded positive press for access to early review copies, junkets, limited edition consoles, controllers, merch etc; which they sold on eBay to pay the rent.
Console 'Tards saw the sweet photos and awesome graphics, rushed out to Game Stop and pre-ordered the game at full price.
Console 'Tards completed the game in under a month, sold the disk back to Game Stop and rolled the money over onto their next pre-order.
It was the Gaming Press's job to hype the game and drive sales. There was a huge cross-over between the publisher's advertising spend and the positive reviews of their titles.
It was the publisher's job to release games at the peak of the hype curve so as to have the most sales and to make all their money before word of mouth got out there.
This was a massive conflict of interests between the Games Journalists and their actual customers, the readers.
When the Gamers found out that Game Journos were actually receiving sexual favors for positive coverage, Gamers responded by making enough noise that they crashed the advertising rate of Games publications forever. The trust is gone and the advertising doesn't get results. The Games Press has been dying a slow death, but it is really, truly dead.
It doesn't hurt that Console 'Tards slowly, ever so slowly, managed to stop drooling and masturbating for long enough to work out how badly they were being fucked by games like Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 1. They might get there slightly before consoles die as a platform, but I doubt it.
Braid came out early in the XBLA lifetime, wasn't complete garbage, and was full on jounalist bait. The market was way less jaded then so deconstrutionist takes felt novel.
Ehhh... I think he's wrong. Right about the ideology over gameplay part but wrong about why indie devs washout.
They don't "wash out" they shot their load and got out. Sure, you have your "stars" who can continue to produce hit after hit but there's very few of them in relation to the vast number of people who attempt it. How many book authors out there only have ONE book? Lots. Same with bands and performers, you get your one success out there but don't have the creative oomph to assemble another one or maybe you did what you wanted to do and move onto something else.
Now those who want careers in the field go for the big or small corps to try to have some stability and that's true of other creative fields as well.
Ironic, because Braid and its, at the time, popularity was almost single handedly responsible for the newborn Indie Dev scene becoming pretentious, fart sniffing garbage.
Because after it came out, and all the usual game journos jerked it off into everyone buying it, suddenly every game wanted to have their princess be the atomic bomb and the MC to actually be an evil incel TRP rapist the whole time. Games could be an exercise in "go fuck yourself" like his secret stars were and people would love it, you could make a generic garbage puzzle/walking game and as long as it had some big "relatable" twist it was GOTY.
So in a way, Braid itself laid the egg that would eventually blossom into Depression Quest and Gone Home creating Gamergate itself.
I enjoyed playing Braid.
Then I read about what Blow meant Braid's story to be and about the secret stars.
Then I said fuck Braid and fuck Jonathan Blow.
I also enjoyed it. It wasn't great and it got tiresome by the end, but I still played it through and can say it was a solid 7/10 elevated by being this "new thing called an indie game for 2$."
And exactly as you said, finding out the intention ruins that entirely and turns it to active hate.
What was the intent? I dug around a little bit, but didn't see anything concrete, just "it's, like, art, man."
Same question, u/SR388-SAX
Based on like 20 year memory it was something like "you are a creep stalker forcing yourself on this random woman in some sort of narcissistic hero fantasy. Also something something atomic bomb."
It can't be stated just how big this game was at the time. Literally everyone was talking about it, and then criticizing it, so eventually it just became "its just art man" so that Blow's pretentious ass could pretend it was deeper than it was and dodge infinite questions about it.
Honestly, I don't think he set it with that as the entire goal. He certainly just made a video game with no story or literally anything to it beyond the gameplay, but then he made up a bunch of stuff to make it seem more than that. Because there is literally nothing to suggest any of that until you hit the last few minutes. And even then its all metaphorical headcanons, because nothing is concrete. But that's what he leaned into and attached it to.
That pretty much matches my thoughts as well.
A nuclear bomb? Oh fuck off.
Wait for 45 minutes for a platform to arrive? Fuck you.
It was 2 hours for it to arrive, and then 2 hours to get to the star. 45 would be less than half of actuality.
Oh, that. I thought you meant something more. I just took that to mean the artist-types had found video games. It didn't rise to the level of hate for me. Just contempt.
Blow was one of the first, so he is worth a larger amount of resentment for doing so.
The same way Horse Armor is just a drop in the bucket now, but its foundational action deserves additional scorn.
Gamergate was inevitable because game journos are 95% far left radicals while their (majority male gamer) audience leans at least slightly to the right. That sort of political and cultural divide simply isn’t sustainable, especially when journos believe it is their responsibility to inject their personal politics into their work.
Fast forward ten years and we get, essentially, gamergate 2, only this time it’s a conflict between far left western game developers and their “creeping further to the right” customer base. Once again, the leftists insist upon injecting their values directly into their work, and the consumers are rejecting the resultant “ideologically-possessed” product.
The inflection points and catalysts that kick off these culture wars are really immaterial. You can’t have these sorts of overriding cultural divides between groups that are expected to interact with each other on a daily basis. Eventually, you will have war.
Gamergate was inevitable because Games Journalism had been colonized by far left radicals who failed to make it in actual journalism. They were actively, deliberately seeking to install themselves as tastemakers and gatekeepers for a multi-billion dollar industry and monetize that position by taking kickbacks, bribes and junkets from game publishers.
When the Gaming Press was founded, it was as "Enthusiast Press"; that is fans of computer games wrote about computer games for other computer gamers.
After Computer Gaming got big, especially after consoles brought computer gaming to a whole generation of tasteless mouth-breathing console 'tards, the AAA industry made bank out of capturing games magazines and then, later, games websites.
An AAA franchise released screen-shots and the tame gaming journos hyped up the upcoming release. They traded positive press for access to early review copies, junkets, limited edition consoles, controllers, merch etc; which they sold on eBay to pay the rent.
Console 'Tards saw the sweet photos and awesome graphics, rushed out to Game Stop and pre-ordered the game at full price.
Console 'Tards completed the game in under a month, sold the disk back to Game Stop and rolled the money over onto their next pre-order.
It was the Gaming Press's job to hype the game and drive sales. There was a huge cross-over between the publisher's advertising spend and the positive reviews of their titles.
It was the publisher's job to release games at the peak of the hype curve so as to have the most sales and to make all their money before word of mouth got out there.
This was a massive conflict of interests between the Games Journalists and their actual customers, the readers.
When the Gamers found out that Game Journos were actually receiving sexual favors for positive coverage, Gamers responded by making enough noise that they crashed the advertising rate of Games publications forever. The trust is gone and the advertising doesn't get results. The Games Press has been dying a slow death, but it is really, truly dead.
It doesn't hurt that Console 'Tards slowly, ever so slowly, managed to stop drooling and masturbating for long enough to work out how badly they were being fucked by games like Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 1. They might get there slightly before consoles die as a platform, but I doubt it.
Braid came out early in the XBLA lifetime, wasn't complete garbage, and was full on jounalist bait. The market was way less jaded then so deconstrutionist takes felt novel.
Not surprised his later efforts failed though.
Ehhh... I think he's wrong. Right about the ideology over gameplay part but wrong about why indie devs washout.
They don't "wash out" they shot their load and got out. Sure, you have your "stars" who can continue to produce hit after hit but there's very few of them in relation to the vast number of people who attempt it. How many book authors out there only have ONE book? Lots. Same with bands and performers, you get your one success out there but don't have the creative oomph to assemble another one or maybe you did what you wanted to do and move onto something else.
Now those who want careers in the field go for the big or small corps to try to have some stability and that's true of other creative fields as well.