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NPR's All Things Considered tries to talk about videogaming during Braid segment
NPR's "All Things Considered" did a short piece on Braid, the mind-bending time-twisting platformer available on Xbox Live. After Robert Siegel tries to get his mouth around various trademarked videogaming phrases like "Xbox Live" and "Halo Combat Evolved", there's a three-and-a-half minute segment based on speaking to developer Jonathan Blow. Because I'll bet you dollars to donuts correspondent Heather Chaplin didn't actually play Braid.
"Braid feels like a game that a grown up can play," she chirps, "that a grown up perhaps ought to play. Braid pulsates with feelings of loss, loneliness, and longing. Which means that Jonathan Blow has violated one of the cardinal rules of game-making: that games have to be fun. Fun with a capital F and an exclamation point."
Leaving aside that "fun" is a useless concept in any meaningful discussion, this is accidentally a good point. Braid doesn't work according the traditional rules, which mandate doling out rewards to players to encourage them to keep playing. Blow expresses it much better when he tells Chaplin his idea of a reward system: "You simply feel the satisfaction of having done something that seemed difficult at first. And having expanded your understanding."
But Chaplin gets in the last word with yet another inadvertent and oblivious dig at videogaming: "Despite everything you hear about the magic of video games, making players feel richer and more fulfilled isn't generally at the top of the list. Maybe it's time they were. For NPR news, I'm Heather Chaplin."
Despite everything you hear in mainstream media, understanding videogames and how they work aren't generally at the top of the list. Maybe it's time they were. For Fidgit.com, I'm Tom Chick.
By Citizen Parker at 1:37 PM ON 08/29/08
I've loved NPR to death for eons now, but it's downright painful when they talk about anything at all related to current / youth culture.
I still recall a hilariously bad "Morning Edition" segment on the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The reporter had pretty much read "Based upon a movie" and talked about that for seven minutes straight with Joss Whedon.
Kudos to Blow for still extracting value of those comments though.
By blizzarddemon at 9:19 PM ON 08/29/08
Someone didnt beat Braid. : P
By Jonathan Blow at 4:41 PM ON 09/01/08
Heather played the game all the way to the end... I have server logs. In doing so, she got many more than the 28 puzzle pieces that *someone* has on his Leaderboard entry. Cough cough.
By radjago at 10:45 PM ON 09/03/08
I've heard and read interviews with Heather Chaplin before and she doesn't seem like the type to not try a game that she reports on. She may have tailored it to the NPR audience, but don't confuse dumbing it down with a dumb author.
By Tom Chick at 1:25 AM ON 09/04/08
Thanks for the reply, rad. But just to defend my comments, I never said she was dumb. My claim, which I stand by even though Jonathan says she's gotten all the way through Braid (do I owe you the dollars or the donuts, Jonathan?), is that she presents a condescending take on videogaming that says to me she doesn't know what she's talking about. I'm not sure how that's tailoring it to the NPR audience, but I like to think we deserve better.
By budgethero at 12:04 PM ON 09/06/08
first off, let's try to remember this isn't a gaming journalist reporting for a gamer media. she's an in-general journalist reporting for people who don't know much about video games. most of the non-gaming world (everywhere and everyone else) might only see GTA IV and Halo and Gears of War, gaming's biggest and most known games. and they may think "wow, i remember when my brother used to play a game about a cute little plummer. now it's all about blood, guns, and killing people. these gamers must be pretty simple." and i think everyone here knows that halo and GoW are not representative of all of gaming. AND that we are not simple wanna-be muscle heads other people may think us to be. then comes the oddity Braid into the gaming world. a game with no muscles, no guns, and the MAIN idea isn't killing monsters/other people. there are of course other games like this, but this one has something else. a message that's even in the gameplay itself. say what you will about Braid, but it's still pretty sophisticated. a word not often in games. and i think that's what she wanted to say here. i think Heather at least thinks non-gamers would think twice of us after a game like Braid is selling well. and i listen to NPR news, so i know that she knows who she's talking to. *non-gamers*. people who don't think about video games except on christmas. and maybe when Big News reports that video games are roting the next generation.
and i know Robert Siegel's just pronouncing the xbox stuff was grading, but he's not used to our weird terms. which is weird cause these people can effortlessly get foreign Iraqi names pronounced impeccably but can just manage xbox. but doesn't this show the situation? Tom, to see it from their side, try reporting on the Iraqi insergancy and imagine the critiques Heather would have. yes, she's reporting out of her sphere, but i don't think she's trying to do your job.
By Tom Chick at 6:43 PM ON 09/06/08
Frankly, I don't think Braid is a particularly good fit for the typical non-gamer who might be listening to NPR. As much as I admire Braid, it takes a very particular kind of mentality to get through it. I don't see a lot of non-core gamers making it to the pay-off.
And Braid certainly isn't appropriate for the sort of language Heather used along the lines of "At last, a game a grown-up can play!" This sort of hyperbole doesn't serve anyone well: gamers, Braid, NPR, or its listeners. Videogaming has plenty of different kinds of offerings for plenty of different kinds of people, many of them fully grown. Braid sits very comfortably next to stuff like Portal, BioShock, Call of Duty 4, Civ IV, Oblivion, Viva Pinata, and Rock Band.
As for this idea that games that aren't Braid don't make you feel richer or more fulfilled, that's patently absurd because it means absolutely nothing. "Richer"? "More fulfilled"? Sheesh. I guess she's all giddy because it's got a great narrative trick. But again, for all its foibles, Braid sits very comfortably next to other "fulfilling" and "enriching" games with powerful narratives: BioShock, Portal, Call of Duty 4, Shadow of the Colossus, and Killer 7, for example.
But, yeah, you have a point about the Iraqi insurgency thing. I can only hope that when I write my story about how the insurgency got nerfed by the Anbar Awakening and how the surge was an "OMG haXX0rs!", someone will upbraid me for it.
By boss at 12:27 AM ON 09/24/08
it's cool
boss:
it's cool...More »