Hmm. It seems Mr Jaffe's personality has, as usual, overshadowed otherwise potentially valid points. However, what I got from that essay was that it's the job of game journalists and critics to "force" developers into creating more artistic work. Why, exactly, does the critical branch of the industry - a branch typically derided and ignored by developers unless it's convenient - bear this responsibility? Are developers not able to grab the torch themselves?

I'll be the first to admit that I'm more forgiving of a game's potential artistic content and message than I am of a movie or novel. Games are still pretty young as a narrative art form. Games are at the chronological equivalent of DW Griffith's Rescue from an Eagle's Nest. Were that movie made today, critics wouldn't give it much credit for being artistic. At the time it was quite revolutionary. So while the artistic content of games may seem a little heavy-handed compared to other media, I tend to believe that's because the discipline of game development just isn't as nuanced as it will one day become.

I don't necessarily think that means I'm fawning over "arty" games that wouldn't get the same credit if they were a different medium. You're a game developer, you want to make some art, go nuts. I'll judge it according to its merits.

David Jaffe, however, is not really qualified to be the mouthpiece for anything. That dude's just too angry. Besides, who shits in a pot any more? Toilets, people. Toilets.

It's true you usually get one or the other and not both - good mechanics but no "arty-ness" or lots of arty-ness and no game. The Void is a classic example of the latter. Had there been a good, easy to control and understand game in The Void (in Pathologic, too), the experience would have been so much the stronger.

Game first, in this medium. Don't build art and try to shove a game into it. You're safer going the other way around or, under ideal circumstances, in a synergistic way, a la Flower.