What I want to try to prove is that artistic games, when done properly, can still be a commercial success. By doing that, I will be able to essentially shift the industry and create more opportunity for people to create artistic games. In a way, making money is important for us right now. Not because we need it, but because the industry needs it.
Jenova ChenYour children are your retirement plan. Because of that, all parents want their children, their only children, to do really well financially, so that they can essentially take care of their parents when they are older.
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 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 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 ChenWe 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 Chen