Jonathan Blow on the "self-harm scenes" in SUPERHOT VR 

I'm so fascinated by where blow draws the line on shit.

Do not let this man play persona 3

2:58 I agree with Blow. I played Subnautica in VR and years later I still have dreams that Im scuba diving there. Parts of my subconscious don't know it was a game.

So much suicide by self inflicted gunshot is an impulsive thing, usually involving alcohol. Actually getting someone to do that action, even in VR, breaks down one mental barrier to potentially be more impulsive. I dont know if this is verifiable 100%, but i have a similar strong reaction because lets not take a chance

Jon’s comment about the simulated suicide being “unearned” makes me think what a game mechanic around sacrificial self-destruction could be like. Something as simple as adding the context that one is infected with some sort of virus or something that would hurt others if they didn’t end their life could be interesting. That’s a pretty contrived example, but maybe something along the lines of a “lose items to win” reverse Metroidvania game could be interesting. Are there any games that explore this already?

I think Jon is right. Also remember him talking about the level designer that died. I think it's likely he lost a friend and colleague to suicide recently.

My interpretation is that Jon isn't against violence or self-harm in games, he just thinks the way superhot uses such an intense action from the player to simply start the game is meaningless and wasteful.

I played the whole game and I don’t even remember that.

Agree with this take, but JB argues a lot of stuff from authority “I have been doing this for years and I’m telling you I’m right” as if he can’t be wrong because he’s had most of a career.

JB has a conscience.

I am the type of person that wouldn't want to virtually shoot myself in the head to start a game.

This is one of those clips that ironically just makes me like JB more

Any conscious experiance can have real consequences, because it affects your brain, and your brain is how and why you act in the real world. How any particular experience affects you depends on so many factors - your initial emotional state, beliefs, age etc.

100% correct

I think it's a bit of a stretch. I would agree, if this game was about suicide topic or in real life, but it's clearly a simulation. And what about shooting other people? Is that fine? The "VR is different from other games" argument feels like the "games are different from movies" argument. Maybe we are not used to VR yet, but should we censor ourselves to such extent? In the end, the real problem is the irl things that lead to suicide, not slight mentions of it in the fiction

There was a lot of lore about having to shoot yourself in the head. The whole story with this game is dope

JB would probably resonate with the message behind Patlabor 2.

I don't fully agree with the point, but I do respect that he has a strong opinion on the subject - especially as he might be right.

JBlow is right here. Simulating suicide is terrible.

at first i was like "that's kinda cringe blow, violence in video games != violence in real life" but after he explained what he meant he lowkey kinda makes sense

I think it's fine if you're in a dream sequence or some JoJo boss special ability, etc where you need to think out of the box. It doesn't bother me at all, but I understand why it's bad in concept as a repeatable routine action to engage with the game every time you start. I do appreciate Jblo's compassion here, especially when he's labelled a negative Nancy lol

I think that none of us can say if this kind of action affects you in any way because it's a subconscious experience. I could just as much say that the opposite is true where an uncontextualized action will not register as meaningful, while experiences that have meaning, or cause-and-effect have much more impact when you are killing (either yourself or others).

That's a pretty interesting topic. I'm inclined to disagree with Jon, but he makes compelling arguments. I don't think it's that serious, but if I was a game designer I probably wouldn't put that in because "what if he's right?"

And shooting other people in vr is different because?

They removed it…

He would hate Persona 3.

It's a cheap scene made possible/interesting by VR itself. Like other commenters here have pointed out, I think Jon losing an employee to suicide is a big part of his reaction.

The original superhot was amazing. We participated in the game jam that created it (7DFPS) but didn't end up submitting because our game had too many technical issues. I was really happy to see its success. The steam version wasn't that bad but I didn't finish it, wasn't really all that captivating. While I agree with Jon that it was a bad idea to put it in there (and he makes a good point saying it's "unearned"), if I really wanted to play this game, I don't think I would be so appalled by it that I wouldn't even start the game. I would probably start the game, and just pretend it didn't happen. But that's just me

Ok other vr games have dangerous stuff like walking on an edge of a tall building. Vr makes it more real. So?

Adult themes are adult themes because they both require maturity to handle, and are divisive. The latter is important in both taste and art. Its not Jon's taste for good reason, but its also in the game to get an emotional response, which is a good reason.

The pulling of the trigger outside of your view is like when kids are forced to look away at the climax and are left more traumatized than they would have been otherwise because they fill it with all the unresolved horrors.

it is un-Godly. Blow is in the right, again

He has the most extreme opinions on random things.

"I'm not saying don't put people through negative experiences" After calling a new, refreshing creative decision based off a negative experience 'repulsive'

En la fecha que se grabó este vídeo, Argentina celebraba un año de la Copa del Mundo.

VR starts out very "embodied", but for me that aspect fades quickly as I engaged with the medium more seriously. Shooting yourself in VR is pretty much just as abstract an experience as in any other art form. I believe people are, or at least will be, able to tell the difference between the seriousness of firearms in real life and the total non-seriousness of firearms in videogames.

Is he fr?

I feel like this is more of a personal, emotional argument from Jon

I've been through multiple suicide attempts in the past and I don't have a problem with dark humor like this. Being able to joke about it actually a catharsis more than anything. Though, I know that one of his employees committed suicide and that it affected him significantly, so I sort of understand where he's coming from. It's probably more hurtful to people who are looking at it from the perspective of being concerned about, or having gone through a tragedy involving someone close to them.

i thought it was a cool mechanic but i can understand why people might feel differently.

I understand his point about it being uncontextualized, but I think it's very selective how he's applying his logic. A lot of media is intentionally depressing. Is all of it bad?

"I'm a professional game designer" Meanwhile, he's only made 2 mid games.

I'm much more in line with looking at this from a values perspective than some rationalization from moral, emotional, psychological or tendency inducing reasons. The game didn't earn the right to ask players to mimic shooting themselves. So it isn't that it's something that shouldn't be depicted at all, but in a way that has some meaning attached to it. The best comparison I can give is actually the ending for the first Superhot. You do "free" yourself (albeit in a less suggestive manner here), but after going through the whole ordeal of the hero's journey. While in the VR title it was the first thing you need to do to even get in the menu, no context, no explanation, just some aesthetic they were going for.

It's embodied ritual, like a Christianity has you eat the body and blood of Christ.

I really disagree with this take. The idea in superhot was similar to freeing yourself from the matrix -- it wasn't about actually killing yourself. It was a simulation inside the simulation. It did not feel like a self destructive act at all

John would probably be a lot more effective at getting people to understand his viewpoints if he was less confrontational and didn't frame everything he thought as objectively correct. That isn't a very rational way to spread what you consider to be the truth as the most most likely to be convinced by that are people who already agree with you.

What makes it macabre is the stripped down context with no premise and the final pulling of the trigger that you never see, which actually makes it more graphic because it leaves you to fill it all in. The act is integrated into your muscle memory, in the abstract, semi-consciously, as a template receptive and available to destructive thought patterns.

Pretending to shoot yourself in a video game is nothing compared to the ability of the human imagination to imagine and visualize such things. Most of us have probably thought about what it would be like to jump off a building or to kill someone. Point being, it's comparatively insignificant whether or not it's in our video games, because such things are already in our heads and always will be. If anything I think it's generally cathartic when video games can give us a safe space for exploring such impulses and thoughts. That said I guess there's a philosophical question - how far down the rabbit hole of grim thoughts should we go? Is there a line past which it becomes destructive? And what is the actual cause of that destructiveness - the medium which allows exploring the idea, or the latent desire in the person who wanted to explore it in the first place? If for instance a game allows you to simulate a school shooting, or raping someone (as plenty of pornography does) - does it make you more or less likely to act those things out? Hard to say - I could see strong arguments to be made on both sides.

This take is bad. This is like saying games should not let you leap from great heights because "oh my god it relates to jumping in real life. What if it makes someone think about it doing it for real?". It's fine to not want to engage with media because of personal reasons, but this moral grandstanding over art is very reductive.

The scene would have worked better post-tutorial, or something like that, after some world building was done. Honestly, I found whole game frustrating and repetitive, so no wonder they injected some shock value. Without it, the game is pretty shallow and not as cerebral as it wants to be. Also, I get repulsed by aesthetic things in games all the time, I just don’t want to talk about it either. And if I’m that colored by my principle, I won’t review that game. Novels get bed reviews all the time for trivial scenes, and I don’t want to sway people because of my own baggage.

I have a bachelors degree in human development. I tend to agree with Blow here. We know that simulated gambling increases the risk of engaging in real gambling as well as becoming afflicted with a gambling addiction. It's not hard to imagine a similar effect with simulated suicide.

If you listen to Blow long enough you'll identify a pattern of him saying I don't like X, X is bad I'm a god so you should just take my word for it that X is bad I'm not gonna bother explaining it

After you play VR for a while real life starts to feel like VR. But the superhot graphics aren't realistic enough to affect your mental state. In my opinion. Maybe if the graphics were ultra realistic then it would be different. Also superhot vr is one of the best games i've played. It's the game that made me buy valve index.

I'll agree it's a bit edgelord-y, but it's not THAT big of a deal.

i liked superhot

Superhot is a weird game for me. I like it, but it's not a shooter, its far more a puzzle game. Like, its about that fantasy of being able to control time, like to act in very slow motion and complete the task perfectly... its about achieving perfection at your own pace. It's vital really, everyone should play it, its the most played game on my Quest besides The Climb. But I agree, nobody should be able to, never mind ever be forced to act out self deletion in a damn videogame.

Epically good take by @Jonathan Blow. We already have enough nihilistic garbage in the media.

There are so many folk-stories from my culture (Hasidic Judaism) about people thinking about hurting someone, and then the other person gets hurt or has a nightmare or some other misfortune befalls them. We underestimate the power of symbols.

buddy is a snowflake

🙄 *Promo sm*

Jon is completely correct. Requiring players to mimic suicide to play the game is requiring players to violate several self-protective inhibitions in their brain. The entire point of VR is to convince the brain that what it is seeing and doing is more real than a typical gaming experience. Imitating something like suicide can *and will* cause your brain to proceed as though you harmed yourself and be more accustomed to the idea of self-harm. If you don’t understand that, I say this out of love for you: Go out into nature daily to rehabilitate your brain. Talk to the Lord God. Socialize with people who influence you beneficially. Engage your life.

Blasting yourself in the dome-slot to start a game is just a humiliation ritual by incel game devs pushed onto the masses.

This is one of the rarer times where I don't quite agree with Jon's take. I don't know anything else about the game. If its a game meant to draw people in for another type of gameplay, I can see why this would be distasteful. But there are games where the whole point of the game is stuff like this though, and I think that's fine. And I'm guessing Jon doesn't. "psychological horror" is definitely a niche thing, but people should be able to do make and play games like that if they want to.

For anyone wondering why this is not a "serious" issue, I'll just try put it out there as simple as I can. It's very much similar to how habits are formed. Your brain cannot distinguish the small minutia actions you're taking are good for you as a whole or not. Whenever you sit on a couch, a small action of grabbing a bag of Cheetos to stuff into your mouth, or grabbing a book to reinforce to mind, looks exactly the same to your brain. You just grabbed "something" to spend the following moments. Overtime, that small action is reinforced very hard, if you don't consciously control yourself and break out of those "triggers". If you have enough intelligence to understand that concept then, how shooting yourself over and over again (albeit in a video game), would effect your psyche in a long term. What kinds of habits would that form inside your brain. You will not finish the game in one go for sure. If you like the game, you will even try to replay it from start again and again. If you think someone's "pretentious" by not explaining this, think very very carefully again, long and hard. This should NOT even become an argument in the first place.

I would say Jonathan Blow is a genius, but then he has the worst fucking takes imaginable with the ego of a person who thinks he is always right

I think there's a lot of misleading arguments in these comments. Let's discuss what's really happening here (in my opinion): Jon saw something in an immersive videogame that activated a trauma response. Perhaps he knows someone who committed suicide specifically, I know he's certainly experienced the death of soneone close to him before. This also happened for many other people, particularly those who have attempted suicide or known people to have attempted suicide. Some people might have just found it conceptually confronting, no experience necessary. In short, a strong and negative emotional response was triggered and made him and others uncomfortable. This made the game unplayable for a large number of people, especially those with a personal association with suicide, and that's obviously a bad thing for a game like Superhot ultimately trying to be a mainstream action game. If it was a small experimental indie project where that was the core experience, it wouldn't be as bad, but when the core experience is shooting dudes and that part of the game is incidental, that's a problem. This has *nothing* to do with whether being able to or having to shoot yourself in a VR game is ethical. Superhot's themes have always been about violence and the disposability of life, and the original game famously ends with you shooting 'yourself' in the head. It makes sense that the devs wanted to take advantage of VR to push that dehumanising experience to the next level, and arguably they did. It just turns out the scene is *too* impactful and hits too close to home for too many people, and that's ok. They made the right call and removed it (in my opinion - you could also make a case for including a clear trigger warning and keeping it). A lot of people here - like Blow - seem to be essentially gesturing towards how shooting yourself, specifically, is 'obviously' different to anything else in any other game ever. It's so 'obvious' that neither he nor comments agreeing with him (or none of those I've read) can tangibly explain why this is the case. I would suggest that oftentimes these kinds of 'obvious' intuitions which gesture towards vague psychological ideas tend to be rationalisations for things we have a personally negative reaction to or otherwise distaste for. People who say being gay is bad because "Sex was made for procreation so butt stuff is unnatural" start at a position of disgust and concern and try to work their way backwards to find something that sounds intelligent to support that idea (ignoring obvious issues like the fact gay women don't do a lot of butt stuff). These takes are, as Blow would say, not reality based. They're trying to cement a personal negative response as an objective fault of the stimuli that triggered it. All this said, I might be wrong, but it seems like every time we find a brand new medium for art people accuse the most violent or provocative forms of it of doing something tangibly harmful, and every time it ends of being a false alarm. Let's keep discussing these ideas, however we came across them, but please stop with all the "If you're an intelligent person, you'd understand..." and "If you can't see the difference between them then you're clearly..." nonsense. No one gets a moral high ground for having moral insight they can't explain to anyone else, let's have some respect for people we disagree with and the humility to acknowledge when something might be a feeling and not a fact. There are a lot of fascinating discussions to have here, please be civil.

I can understand being repulsed by something in a game, but saying it is malpractice on the part of the developer rather than merely a subjective reaction you're having is just a lack of self-awareness IMO.

Isn't that a cool scene

Violence is normal, but suicide isn't? Kind of a PMRC take. "I'm right but I'm not gonna explain it" only does two things: 1. people still want to know why 2. doesn't convince anyone

Incredibly based take

I just don't agree with his take here. When I played it for the first time it was like "oh I have to shoot myself to start, OK. OK, now I'm in the game, let's go". I didn't even remember that scene until now.

What he said is basically common sense. The very fact that we have debates and so called "different opinions" around something like this is an indicator of how deep is the shit this civilization is being pulled into.

His explanation was dumb. The suicide mechanic is bad simply cause it's shallow. They didn't try and use it to say anything or have it play into a theme. It was the MW2 airport level all over again. Shock value just to get people talking.

Jon Blow confirmed SJW? 😂

The whole point of games is to experience things you would never otherwise and not risk anything but a few bucks and your time. Anybody who starts with "I am a professional so hear me..." especially in the area of art is a bit cringe.

Can someone explain better what Blow is trying to say, I feel his point is suprisingly idiotic seeing as he is predominantly a smart person. I also dont understand the perspective of the review bombers too. It seems petty to not play a supposedly good game (gameplay-wise) because 1 TINY portion of the game (~3sec) is "repulsive". Also the atttitude of putting down others who disagree "If you are smart you'd get it", "trust me there is a difference", etc. These are very uncategorically strange things to hear and demean him and the validity of his argument. He is also very quick to dismiss it as being worthless to the narrative/lore when I think (having played it) it *clearly* is symbolic and has meaning to the story. For the story to be complete it *must* be contextualized with the cutscene in mind to fully understand the story. He comes from semblences of scientific validity but it falls apart very clearly and shows his biases. Yes, physical actions reinforce behaviors moreso than less physicall active ones (like using a keyboard) but if you say that, how can you say in the same breath there is no problem with games like Pavlov VR (a VR shooter game). It shows a clear moral jugement on self injurious material over all other violence. *Even if* that's the case it still is contradicted *again* when he says he isnt pro-sheltering people from violence. So then, why is he advocating for censorship or (i'm assuming) trigger warnings, the premise not only contradicts but also personally feels stupid. Suppose i've experience trauma related to self injurious behavior in the past, why is that an issue we must change the outside world to fix for us? Why not accept it's a personal gripe and let the world live on while you work on not being personally affected. E.g: i've had experiences with what could be called chronic nosebleeds and I hated it and it made my quality of life much worse when it was active. I dont find gripes with the world whenver anime show nosebleeds, I accept I dislike seeing it but I move on with my life. Overall it seems super petty and Blow did not seem to make a compelling argument. It seemed all like coping and rationalizations, but if anyone can explain it better to me please do! I want to understand.

"The game requires to shoot you in the head, and that's repulsive... The more embodied something is, the more real it is." And then starts to explain how subconscious BS works, and how the game has the RESPONSIBILITY about suicide prevention. The game don't need that responsibility, people are responsible about their actions. It is so stupid when even adults aren't able to differentiate fiction from reality.

Nah Blow is being a baby, I loved that scene.

Johnatan could do so much more for the industry if only he could act less obnoxious.

"The game didn't earn it." That captures most of it. It was just a cheap gimmick exploiting something serious. Engaging with that kind of thing has value, but not when done flippantly.

Jonathan Blow: you don't understand human psychology, shooting yourself in the head to start the game is repulsive. Also Jonathan Blow: retweets a post that says "Don't forget to add Zelensky as a dependent when filing taxes this year" for all his Ukrainian followers to see. Tells artists that are worried about their livelihoods because of genAI companies scraping their work that it's an irrelevant issue because "what about the horse trainers?" What a disappointment.

typical twitch chat psychos

This guy is a nob

Too pretentious, "If you don't follow my rules you aren't good"

This take is bad. This is like saying games should not let you leap from great heights because "oh my god it relates to jumping off a building in real life. What if it makes someone think about it doing it for real?". It's fine to not want to engage with media because of personal reasons, but this moral grandstanding over art is reductive.