Jenova Chen

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Jenova Chen, 2007

Xinghan Chen ( Chinese  陳星漢  /  陈星汉 , Pinyin Chén Xīnghàn ; born October 8, 1981 in Shanghai , China ), known professionally as Jenova Chen, is a Chinese game designer . He is the designer of the award-winning computer games Cloud, Flow, Flower and Journey and co-founder of thatgamecompany .

Chen is from Shanghai, where he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science with a minor in digital art and design. He then moved to the United States , where he earned a masters degree from the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division. During this time he developed the games Cloud and Flow and met his fellow student Kellee Santiago . After a short time at Maxis , where he worked on Spore , he founded the development studio thatgamecompany together with Santiago and became the company's creative director . The company signed a three-game deal with Sony Computer Entertainment and distributed Flow, Flower and Journey on the PlayStation Network .

Since Chen was born in a different culture than the one he lives in today, he tries to develop games that are universally accessible to all people. His goal with his games is to mature computer games as a medium by developing games that evoke emotional responses in the player that are lacking in other games. Although he and thatgamecompany can and have made more traditional games, he has no plans to develop them commercially as he doesn't think they align with their goals as an independent developer .

biography

Chen was born on October 8, 1981 in Shanghai , and lived there until 2003. Together with his parents, he was part of "a middle-class family." His father worked in software development after working on "one of the first giant computers in China" had worked. Although Chen was interested in art and drawing as a young child, his father directed him towards computers by enrolling him in programming competitions when he was ten. He was interested in the computer games he saw there, but wasn't that enthusiastic about the actual programming. During his teenage years, he had deep emotional experiences with games he played, including The Legend of Sword and Fairy , which he attributes to the fact that he was not as exposed to books, films, or life events that other people had those experiences with would have made. These experiences led him to try, as an adult, to create these kinds of feelings in games. While in high school , he chose the English name Jenova for himself, after a character in Final Fantasy VII . He wanted a name that would be unique anywhere as there were "thousands of Jason Chens".

He earned a degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University , which he found "fairly easy" because of his computer background. There he was very interested in digital art and animation and later took a minor in digital art and design at East China University . Still interested in computer games, he was involved in the development of three games as part of a student group. After completing his studies, he struggled to find a job in the Chinese computer game industry that combined his interests of "development, art and design" and also felt that "very few games actually achieved the qualities that were needed for would be interesting to an adult. ”He also considered working on digital animation for films.

During his studies, Chen met his future business partner Kellee Santiago .

He then moved to the United States for a Masters Degree in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC). Chen studied in the Interactive Media Program, a new subject at the School of Cinematic Arts. His intention at the time was to use the degree to get the kind of job he wanted in China. At USC, he was inspired by attending the Game Developers Conference , where he positively compared the games he developed in college to the works of students attending the Independent Games Festival . While studying at USC, he met Kellee Santiago , another student on the same program, and the two decided to work together on games that would be out of the mainstream .

Their first game, which received a USC grant of $ 20,000, was Cloud, released in 2005, which "is about a young hospital patient who goes into the air in his mind trapped inside." The idea was based in part on Chen himself, as he was often hospitalized for asthma as a child . It was intended as an attempt to “expand the range of emotions computer games evoke”. Chen and Santiago showed the game at a student lecture at the Game Developers Conference to John Hight, a Sony representative, and said it was the first game in the Zen genre. Hight was interested, but no deal came off. The game won the Best Student Philosophy Award at the Slamdance Guerilla Games Competition , a Student Showcase Award at the Independent Games Festival, and was screened on Spike TV , G4TV and CBS News Sunday Morning .

Chen felt that the reason Cloud was so positively received was because the emotions it provoked in players were different than any other game available at the time, and he believed that it was his "calling" to make more games that would change what people understood by computer games. The following year, Chen wrote his master's thesis on the concept of dynamic difficulty adjustment, in which the game adapts to the player's past and present actions individually. Chen illustrated his ideas with Flow, a Flash game he developed with Nicholas Clark. The game consists of the player leading a water-dwelling microorganism through different depths of the ocean, consuming other organisms and developing in the process. It was released in March 2006, reached 100,000 downloads in the first two weeks, and had been downloaded over 650,000 times by July 2006. A PlayStation 3 version was announced as a downloadable game for the PlayStation Store in May 2006 and released in February 2007. In March 2008 a version for the PlayStation Portable was released , which was developed by SuperVillain Studios . Flow was the PlayStation Network's most downloaded game in 2007 and won the “Best Downloadable Game” award at the Game Developers Choice Awards .

Upon graduation, Chen and Santiago started their own game company, thatgamecompany, in Los Angeles , where he still lives, and signed a deal with Sony for three PlayStation Store games. The PS3 version of Flow was the first, and during the development phase, Chen worked for Maxis on the game Spore . After Flow was released , Chen returned to thatgamecompany and started working on her second game.

thatgamecompany

The next game, Flower , was Chen's and thatgamecompany's "first game outside the safety net of science." Chen was the game's creative director while Santiago was the producer and Clark was the lead designer. The company ranged in size from six to nine employees at various stages in the game's development. Flower was intended by Chen to arouse positive emotions in the player and to act as an "emotional refuge". Chen described the game as “an interactive poem that explores the tension between urbanity and nature.” Choosing a “nature” theme early on in the development process, he said that he “had this concept that every PlayStation is like a portal is in your living room that leads you to another place. I thought: Wouldn't it be nice if it were a portal that allows you to be embraced by nature? ”Chen designed the game on the idea that the main purpose of entertainment products like computer games are the emotions they feel in the audience and that the emotional diversity of most games is very limited. In order to get Flower to have the “emotional spectrum” he wanted, Chen viewed the development process as a work of art rather than a “fun” game that wouldn't evoke the desired emotions. In 2008, during the development phase of Flower, Chen was added to the TR35 list by the Technology Review as one of the 35 best innovation leaders under 35 in the world.

After Flower was released with critical acclaim and awards, Chen and thatgamecompany began working on their next game, Journey . Since in most games communication between players is geared towards specific goals, Chen's intention with Journey was that the player could either play alone or meet other players, but not be able to communicate with them directly. Instead, through their actions, players must build relationships with one another, help one another, or leave one another. Journey was released on PlayStation Network on March 13, 2012 and received critical acclaim.

Chen's current game is Sky, which will be released for Apple's iOS first in 2018 . The focus of the game is on the cooperation of the individual players. Chen said, "I think true happiness comes from someone who really wants to help others, and there are a lot of mechanics in the game that involve giving."

Influences and Philosophy

Chen plays a wide variety of computer games. He names Katamari Damacy , Ico and Shadow of the Colossus as his greatest influences . He also refers to Final Fantasy VII as some kind of influence from which he derived his name. Chen himself plays games "competitively", including titles like Street Fighter IV and StarCraft . He believes he has a competitive nature that he has applied to "winning" as a game designer by creating games that are different from what is out there rather than competitive games. Having grown up in China and working in America, Chen believes that as a game designer he cannot fully identify with both cultures. Instead of trying to make games that fit a culture perfectly, he tries to make games that are universal and culturally independent.

When Chen left Maxis to rejoin thatgamecompany, he knew it would mean making less money and having an insecure career. However, he felt that it was important for the industry and the medium as a whole to develop games that evoke different emotional responses in the player than just tension or fear. Although Chen isn't against creating action games and his company has created "exciting" games in-house that have been well received by Sony, he feels that it doesn't make sense thatgamecompany should produce such games commercially. Similarly, Chen does not intend thatgamecompany to produce highly budgeted blockbuster games, as the pressure on profit that comes with it would stifle the innovation he wants to focus on at thatgamecompany. Chen believes that for computer games to become a mature medium like film, the industry as a whole must create a wide range of emotional responses to its games, much like film has thriller , romance, and comedy genres based on the emotions that they evoke in the audience. He believes there are only three ways that computer games can affect adults as much as they do children: "intellectually, where the game opens up a new perspective on the world that has never been seen before," by "touching someone emotionally." "And" by creating a social environment in which intellectual or emotional stimulation could come from other people. "

Games

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 陈星汉 游戏 《旅程》 获 国际 游戏 开发 者 大会 6 项 大奖. In: China News. China News Service , March 28, 2013, accessed February 19, 2018 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Heather Chaplin: Video Game Grad Programs Open Up The Industry. In: npr.org. National Public Radio , March 23, 2009, accessed February 19, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Interview with Jenova Chen. In: The old Blog of Tale of Tales. Tale of Tales , April 2008, accessed February 19, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Howard Wen: Go With the fl0w: Jenova Chen on Console Independence. In: Gamasutra . UBM plc , January 22, 2007, accessed February 19, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c Nora Young: Full Interview: Jenova Chen. In: cbc.ca. CBC Radio One , January 28, 2009, archived from the original on February 13, 2009 ; accessed on February 19, 2018 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c d e Simon Parkin: Jenova Chen: Journeyman. In: Eurogamer . Gamer Network, July 21, 2015, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b Interview: Redefining Video Games . In: Game Informer . No. 207 . GameStop , July 2010, ISSN  1067-6392 , p. 34 (English).
  8. ↑ a b c Evan Shamoon: Check Out My Flow . In: Wired . tape 14 , no. 7 . Condé Nast, July 2006, ISSN  1059-1028 (English).
  9. ^ Benjamin Brophy-Warren: Joysticks and Easy Riders. In: The Wall Street Journal . News Corp. , December 20, 2008, archived from the original on April 14, 2009 ; accessed on February 20, 2018 (English, Paywall ).
  10. ^ A b Ross Miller: Joystiq interview: Jenova Chen. In: Engadget . Oath , September 18, 2006, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  11. ↑ a b Aaron Rutkoff: How a Grad-School Thesis Theory Evolved Into a PlayStation 3 Game. In: The Wall Street Journal . News Corp. , November 28, 2006, archived from the original on March 14, 2011 ; accessed on February 20, 2018 (English, Paywall ).
  12. ↑ Coming to PSP: Go with the flOw. In: PlayStation Blog. Sony Interactive Entertainment , February 7, 2008, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  13. ^ Scott Kirsner: Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen. In: Variety . Penske Media Corporation, May 2, 2008, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  14. ↑ a b Brandon Sheffield: Finding A New Way: Jenova Chen And Thatgamecompany. In: Gamasutra . UBM plc , May 5, 2008, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Brandon Boyer, Christian Nutt: MIGS: First Details On Thatgamecompany's Flower Debut. In: Gamasutra . UBM plc , November 29, 2007, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  16. ↑ A little bit about us ... People. In: thatgamecompany.com. thatgamecompany , archived from the original on July 11, 2010 ; accessed on February 20, 2018 (English).
  17. ↑ a b Simon Carless: GDC Europe: Thatgamecompany's Santiago On Flower's Emotional Search. In: Gamasutra . UBM plc , August 17, 2009, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Kellee Santiago: Stop and Smell the Flower on PSN February 12th. In: PlayStation Blog. Sony Interactive Entertainment , January 19, 2009, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  19. ^ Joshua Ostroff: GDC Europe: Thatgamecompany's Santiago On Flower's Emotional Search. In: Exclaim! March 2009, archived from the original on March 17, 2009 ; accessed on February 20, 2018 (English).
  20. ^ Mathew Kumar: Develop 2009: Thatgamecompany's Chen On How Emotion Can Evolve Games. In: Gamasutra . UBM plc , July 15, 2009, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  21. ↑ BAFTA Awards Search. Flower. In: bafta.org. British Academy of Film and Television Arts , accessed February 20, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Kevin VanOrd: Journey Impressions. In: GameSpot . CBS Interactive , June 22, 2010, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  23. ↑ a b Jeffrey Matulef: That Game Company Reveals "social adventure game" Sky for iOS. In: Eurogamer . Gamer Network, September 12, 2017, accessed February 19, 2018 .
  24. ↑ James Brightman, "It's the game designer's job to evoke different sides of humanity". In: GamesIndustry.biz. Gamer Network , December 5, 2017, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  25. ^ Mary Jane Irwin: The Beautiful Game. In: GamesIndustry.biz. Gamer Network , February 19, 2009, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  26. ↑ a b Jenova Chen. Credits. In: MobyGames . Blue Flame Labs, accessed February 19, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Chen, Jenova
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chén Xīnghàn (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese game designer
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH Shanghai , China