# Jonathan Blow on game design

[Jonathan Blow](!W) is a video game developer who created _Braid_ and _The Witness_.
This page contains notes on two of his lectures on game design.


## Contents


## "Video Games and the Human Condition"

A 2011 [lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU).

- Difficulty that rises and then stays constant is boring.
  Difficulty should oscillate a little.
  It is what creates the drama of the game.
- Boredom is a healthy response to unproductive situations.
- Boredom, very roughly, is like adding simulated annealing to a hill-climbing process.
  It lets you get out when you're stuck in a local maximum.
- Slots, RPGs are boring without the flavoring.
- Engineering a way through others' defenses to profit off them makes you a parasite.
    - But we circumvent human defenses for good reasons, like in medicine.
        - The difference is in whether the process benefits you.
        - Even if it is voluntary and makes you happy for a while it can be a con trick.
            - The watch con trick.
        - Even if you live out your whole life and die happy if you could have been happier it could still be a con trick.
- Social games where you waste your move or where "your crops wither" are deliberately designed to game your worry.
    - World of Warcraft is at least a bit more innocent.
- "How do we get people to buy a large amount of things that give them a minimum amount of utility?"
    - If they get a lot of utility out of it they get satiated.
- All of biology is about creatures treating creatures as resources.
- Manipulation is not a sign of respect.
- Game designers manipulate people all the time.
- You probably need some degree of it for your game to sell.
- How Jonathan Blow does it:
    - Assume the player is an intelligent person with a rich life;
    - However, the idea of respecting the player is full of contradictions;
    - Minimize the use of manipulative tactics;
        - Traditionally acknowledged good design tactics!
    - Don't try to make the most fun game or the game that would sell the most;
    - Trying to optimize the game for interest would imply approaching the player with a kind of scientific scrutiny that isn't respectful.
    - Alternative approaches:
        - Personal games;
        - Games about subjects;
        - Impact the player's lives in the way you want while still making a good amount of money.
- Science shows us the value of being serious about the objective world.
- We might be overemphasizing science in game design.
    - Games are about subjective experiences.
- Competent vs. respectable game designer.
- "Fun" is a catch-all.
    - Are FPSs joyous?
- Alan Moore on artists:

> [...] In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river.
> They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment.
> They're not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being; that can change a society.
> They are seen as simple entertainment; things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we're waiting to die.
> It's not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants.
> If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn't be the audience.
> They would be the artists.
> It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.

- Language is linear.
  Games let you explore space.
- DLC isn't very profitable.
  It's mainly for prolonging your interest in the game so that you don't sell it to GameStop as a used game.
- (Audience member) Parallels between the above and what David Foster Wallace wrote about, including dissatisfaction with language (as building a world from discrete images for DFW).
  Postmodern tricks are either to entertain the reader or to show off how smart the author is.
- The act of playing video games is a bit socially hostile.


## "Game design: the medium is the message"

A 2013 [lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc).

- In the 1970s, television was different from what it is today.
  Today's television is better.
    - Narrative designed to keep people there through the commercials.
        - Cliffhangers.
    - Syndication.
        - The world can't really change.
- TV shows were more like an engineering problem.
    - When you meet the constraints, there is not much room for expression.
- In movies, you get your money upfront and can then concentrate on trying to entertain the audience the best you can.
  There is something pure about that.
- In television, there's more manipulation.
    - Fake "dramas".
        - No change => no stakes.
- HBO.
    - No commercial breaks.
    - No syndication.
    - Not subject to government and industry regulations on profanity, sexuality, and violence.
- Constraints invasive to the work.
- In games.
    - Arcade cabinets.
        - Expensive to build.
        - Commercial constraints in terms of quarters per minute.
        - Games were quick action challenges.
    - Home machines.
        - Longer-form games.
            - Text adventures.
            - High-verisimilitude flight simulators.
        - "When are games going to go mainstream? When will society start to appreciate it?"
    - Social games.
        - Find players who are already on Facebook for other reasons.
            - Free-to-play.
            - Virality.
    - Mobile devices.
        - Find players who already own the devices for other reasons.
- Downsides.
    - F2P is a lot more like TV than cinema.
    - The audience is like a TV audience, not a movie audience.
        - Low expectations.
        - Little experience.
    - The games end up designed around micropayments.
        - Try to ensnare people for as long as possible (build an infinite treadmill).
            - Meaningless rewards.
        - Interrupt the player's life as often as possible.
        - Train players to spend fake currency (through the tutorial).
        - Get people to bug their friends.
        - Make the game about waiting; let the player pay to not wait.
        - Give a reward; threaten to take it away.
            - Loss aversion.
- Designers' excuses.
    - "All games are going to be this way!"
        - TV didn't kill movies, etc.
    - "It doesn't change the nature of good design."
        - Can't have a personal story.
            - _Gone Home_.
                - Buying a bubble gum solvent to read your sister's letter on paper stuck together with bubble gum.
        - Can't have difficult decisions.
            - _Papers Please_.
                - Buying X-ray plates for scans.
        - Lack of discovery.
            - _The Binding of Isaac_.
- In other areas of life, there is no confusion about quality.
    - McDonald's is not considered high-quality food.
- F2P games are the new _Six Million Dollar Man_, except worse.
- Awe.
    - Awe is the most powerful emotion.
    - Awesome things are rich and generous.
    - Can you make a game that inspires awe if you spend your days learning how to nickel and dime people?

## Page metadata

URL: <https://dbohdan.com/jonathan-blow.md>

Published 2021-02-28, updated 2025-10-20.

Tags:

- ethics
- game design
- notes
- person
- video games

Index: [Notes and reviews](/notes).