We do have to learn poetry at school. Poetry is interesting to me, particularly Chinese poetry. It's like an ancient form of song. There's five sentences, seven sentences - they're very different from English poetry. Chinese poetry is much more rigorous. You can only use this many words, and they will form some kind of rhythm so people can actually sing it. To me, poetry is quite abstract but also quite beautiful.
Jenova ChenThere are words that exist in one language and not in another language. It creates barriers that keep us from understanding each other. I'm often frustrated using words to talk to people.
Jenova ChenSo my resolution this year is: I'm not a money guy, but I want to make our next product a commercial success, so that people will say, 'Hey, there's a huge market out there. If you make a high-quality games that can touch people, it's going to do great business.
Jenova ChenI wanted to see if I could create something that is emotional between people. Existing games are about killing each other or killing something together. The idea of social emotion means people need to share feelings. At that moment, the players are in sync. The problem [with many games] is there's no chance to share emotion. Most of them are busy, [there are] explosions everywhere. So we got rid of all the background noise and we had to get rid of the guns.
Jenova ChenWhen parents want you to do really well academically, they want to avoid you getting into anything that would distract you - you know, rock and roll music, or really serious, long novels that you get so absorbed in, you forget to study.
Jenova ChenIn cinema we have all kinds of ways of communicating: cinematography, lighting, character performance. If you pay attention to silent era movie actors, they are big about postures and really exaggerated expressions so you can understand how they feel. We use all kinds of techniques from cinema to help communicate emotion.
Jenova Chen