Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow
Jonathan Blow in November 2008
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley (dropped out)
Occupation	Video game developer

Jonathan Blow is an independent video game developer. His game Braid won the "Game Design" award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006. He is currently developing The Witness, to be released in 2012.^[1]

For many years Blow wrote the Inner Product column for Game Developer Magazine. He is the primary host of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop each March at the Game Developers Conference, which has become a premier showcase for new ideas in video games. In addition, Blow is a regular participant in the Indie Game Jam.

Ethics

In a speech at the Free Play conference in Australia in September 2007, Blow suggested games were approaching the level of societal influence of other forms of art, such as films and novels. One example that Blow cites is World of Warcraft, which he labels "unethical", stating that such games exploit players by using a simple reward-for-suffering scheme to keep them in front of their computer. In his view, developers need to think about what reinforcement the games are providing players when they reward them for performing certain actions. He emphasized the need for developers to design inspiring new games using "innovative, ethical and personal art."^[2]

Education

Blow studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley and was president of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association for a semester; he left the university in 1993, a semester before his graduation.^[3]

See also

• Independent Video Game Developers

References

1. ^ http://the-witness.net/news/?page_id=2
2. ^ "Ethical dilemmas". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2007-09-20. http://www.smh.com.au/news/articles/ethical-dilemmas/2007/09/19/1189881577195.html. Retrieved 2008-01-10. 
3. ^ http://konzole.hrej.cz/clanky/tema/jonathan-blow-california-dreamin/

External links

• Jonathan Blow's web page
• Braid
• Gamasutra interview with Jonathan Blow

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Name	Blow, Jonathan
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