Kotaku: ThatGameCompany And The Beauty Of Taking Risks

Kotaku: "Everything is intense the first time you experience it," says Jenova Chen, the 27-year-old creative director at Santa Monica-based studio ThatGameCompany.

The first few World War II shooters Chen played floored him. We were all floored until the last Great War became such a vanilla setting for shooters. Old hat, and don't we want something new?

With games like Flower and flOW, that's exactly what Chen tries to give players: Something new. And he's giving them that via a new method for console gamers, digital distribution. Each year, video game after video game hits retailers. Few of them we remember; few of them stick with us. The rest sit on our shelves with nothing more lasting than the plastic boxes they came in.