Jenova Chen: “What’s The Point” Of Hardcore Games?
Lewis Denby January 12, 2011 - 8:39 am
The other thing emerging from the Jenova Chen (thatgamecompany) interview on the US PlayStation Blog is his opinion of hardcore games. They’re fun, he says… but really, what’s the point?
“What’s the point in pulling off another infinite combo? What does that do for your life? It’s not useful,” he said.
“People still play chess because strategic thinking is useful. Brain training games, fitness games… these have relevance. People don’t have much time to waste, so they want relevance. Whether it’s emotional relevance, like experiencing joy or sadness, or intellectual relevance, or social relevance.”
These comments mirror those he made at 2009′s Develop Conference. Then, he said: “Game reviews talk about technical features as if they’re talking about cars, but they don’t really talk about how a game feels. Whenever reviewers do talk about feelings, it’s usually just ‘this is fun’. If we look at the feelings that games evoke, they’re still primal feelings – power fantasies. But this is only a small portion of the emotional spectrum. As a teenager, I was really into these feelings, but I think, as I get older, I’m wondering what’s on the rest of the spectrum.”
