Yeah, I agree with HobbesMkii- I think Journey has something really interesting and important to say about the nature of online gaming, and while it might not be as literary as what it has to say about human relationships generally, that doesn’t mean it’s fair game to stomp all over Evan’s point before he’s even made it. I for one was interested in hearing what Evan had to say about Journey’s philosophy on online gaming (which I ordinarily avoid like the plague, but found very rewarding here), and hope he illuminates us either in the comments or in a follow up article or video.

I’m sure there’s a point to be made about how restricting the number of people involved in an experience to just two predisposes people towards cooperation, like a kind of reverse bystander effect. Or how dramatically restricting communication forces players to develop their own unique methods of communication with literally every playthrough. Or how leaving your companions anonymous allows you to truly abandon your prejudices and preconceived notions about people- even those you may not have realized you had (I don’t just mean racial or sexual prejudices, mind, I also mean more low-stakes things like assuming some guy who’s handle is Naruto_fan69 is a dumbshit kid and not a real human being perfectly capable of sharing a meaningful experience with another person).

 @JohnTeti:disqus I’m pretty simpatico to that idea. Videogames are such a young medium that it seems only right that if you’re going to talk about them as art, you might as well back up and tackle them with as broad a reach as possible when considering themes and messages.

But what I’m thinking that one way we tend to engage with art is to compare what its doing (or not doing) to other examples of its medium. Picasso’s work challenges not only to regard how we look at the world, but also how we look at art–as the sum of shapes and lines. The Artist, for example, holds an attraction not just because it demonstrates a technique of communication without spoken words, but because it harkens back a century in its medium’s own collective narrative to remind us that that technique used to be the default, it both preys on our sense of nostalgia while also offering a critique, however slight and unassuming, on film. It happens all over–The Yiddish Policeman’s Union plays with the conventions of detective novels (and I’m willing to bet any one of us could rattle off five novels that are more meta and recursive about literature than that one). Watchmen famously holds up comics’ centerpiece protagonists to a rather harsh light.

All of these examples have had a longer time to grow and mature (although perhaps to a slightly lesser degree in comics) within their medium, and I feel like videogames have only recently begun to start focusing on emotional impact and depth in design recently (and thatgamecompany is probably at the forefront of this), so, again, I don’t disagree with the tack you’re taking. It’s probably necessary–while discussing mechanics of how other art works generally opens up that art more, because of the necessity of mechanics in videogames merely to get anything out of them, it’s probably far too easy to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of something trivial, like inventory farming, say.

 @JohnTeti:disqus I do see your point that everything I raised is relevant to human interaction broadly- and don’t get me wrong, Journey’s hypotheses about human interaction in general is what most interests me as well- but I also think that there’s an interesting discussion to be had about how the game’s mechanics deconstruct online multiplayer. @HobbesMkii:disqus said it best, I think, when he explained that great art often has important observations to make about multiple nested subject matters, from the broad to the narrow, and that each level is generally ripe for critical examination. With the same gestures Journey might comment on society at large as well as online multiplayer in particular, in the same way Waiting For Godot is a critical examination of both society at large and the medium of plays specifically.

But hey, I think I’m coming off as overly aggressive. I didn’t mean to cast you as some kind of ogre who was stifling out potentially creative and interesting areas of conversation, particularly when you’re clearly putting your heart and soul into creating those very same discussions. I’m really digging what you guys are doing here and, like you, I’m passionate about the subject. Friends? (Best friends? Forever?)

(Also I would still like to hear more from Narcisse in the comments if he’s got the time and drive)

To build on what @Raging_Bear:disqus is saying, 
I don’t think the gushing anyone is doing about Journey here is a pretense.  We all have a genuine love for this game, and we are discussing it in the terms in which it appeals to us, which is not primarily found in its gameplay mechanisms.  Apparently, Journey is not your cup of tea.  Which is fine, but it doesn’t mean you’re right and we’re wrong (or vice versa, of course), or that the site’s staff isn’t doing their job properly.