Jonathan Blow: Video Games and the Human Condition

Why HN readers recommended it

Recommended as a thoughtful critique of addictive game design and the designer's role in building ethical games.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

rubbermuck

Topic

game design ethics

Format

talk

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

6

HN mentions in dataset

8

Recommendation years in dataset

2011–2017

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• He is the exact opposite of a "hipster". He is a very smart (and in my opinion humble) guy. I don't know where his portrayal as an arrogant guy comes from. He held an amazing talk / presentation at Rice University called "Video Games and …

• I see a lot of parallels between gambling and video games, specifically in how video game reward mechanisms resemble gambling with the way the brain responds to intense situations and risk/reward scenarios—simply put, you can get quite a rush from either, and there's an entire …

• Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid) has an interesting rant on social video games: [VIDEO] The gist being that games like Farmville are A/B tested to maximize addictiveness and profit, rather than maximizing fun.