Cross posted from the PlayStation Blog:

When Jenova Chen and thatgamecompany came to us here in the Santa Monica Studio with the idea for Flower, it was fueled by his appreciation for nature’s beauty, his experiences of coming from China to California, and how the contrasting cities, landscapes, and coastline touched his emotions and creativity. Seeing his passion for the subject, we did everything we could to make sure he and the rest of TGC had what they needed to deliver the most compelling experience possible, and the end result is the award-winning game Flower. With our last contest, it was clear that Flower touched many of you in ways we could not have imagined.

Now, for this second contest, we want to see how Flower impacted you. Create a piece of art that was either inspired by Flower, or has to do with the emotions and/or nature that you think Flower depicts.

You can flex your skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D software, or any other imaging software. You can even make something physical, like a painting, mixed media, or sculpture, and snap a photo of it as your submission. This is your opportunity to be a part of the Flower community. If you didn’t have a story to submit in the previous contest, then take this chance to participate. Express yourself in a way that reflects thatgamecompany’s expression through Flower.

The only requirements are that the submission be 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall, that it be your original creation, and that it be related to Flower as described above.

You have plenty of time to be creative and enter your submission because this contest will run from today, May 12th through May 26th, 2010. Thatgamecompany will judge the submissions and choose five winners, each of who will receive a $20 PSN card.

The official rules are here. We can’t wait to see what creations you all come up with. Good luck!

The following promotion is intended for viewing in the 50 United States and the District of Columbia only and will be construed and evaluated according to United States law. Do not enter this contest if you are not a legal resident of, and located in, the 50 United States or the District of Columbia at the time of entry.

That’s right, we’re four years old today.

And what a four years it’s been! We’ve gotten the opportunity to launch two PlayStation 3 titles, work with some amazing game makers, and meet all sorts of wonderful people who, it turns out, really want more thoughtful, meaningful game experiences, too.  We found out that we’re not alone.

Here’s a picture of us at our first birthday:

According to the National Network for Child Care, a defining aspect of a one-year old is that they are learning to be independent. “ That is why toddlers want to do things for themselves, have their own ideas about how things should happen, and use ‘no’ many times each day. ” We were getting our sea legs. We knew we wanted to do things our  way, but we didn’t know what that meant yet. We had to try and stand up, and fall, and try again. There were tears, there was laughter, and there were some awesome games.

Here we are today:

*Kellee is taking the photo here

According to the National Network for Child Care “‘Energetic’ and ‘imaginative’ best describe the 4-year-old.” I think that fits us pretty good. We’ve learned a lot, and are excited about applying our lessons learned on our future endeavors. We learned that game development isn’t what you think it is, but we’re ready to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose and more than just a dash of passion.

Thank you to everyone that has helped us grow in the last four years. Thanks to John Hight, Rusty Buchert, George Weising, Allan Becker, Phil Harrison, Shuhei Yosheida, Randall Lowe, Phil Kovatz,  Eric Koch, Tina Kowaleski, and everyone else at Sony who has ever lended us a hand, supported us in a meeting, or connected us with that person we just had to know or who had to know us.

Thank you to the faculty at the University of Southern California and the student body that still comes in to playtest for us.

Thank you to everyone in the industry who gave us their advice for free, just to help us out. I hope you know how much it means to us. You don’t have to do it, but you do it anyways, and it makes our games great.

And thank you to the players and the fans for advocating for us online and in your communities. For showing your friends our games, for mentioning us in conversations of “have you checked out…?” and for emailing us with your support. You have allowed us to opportunity to keep making our games, because you know that you vote with your dollars, and you voted for us when we really needed it.

Thanks for 4 years… here’s to many more!

From the artist: “I started making it about 6 months ago for an art class. After much thought, (and hours of Flower played) I made the decision to base it upon Flower. The landscape was created using Papier-mâché, and the Flowers were animated Origami which was added later on Adobe After Effects. The petals were also added on After Effects. I unfortunately was unable to use the official soundtrack due to the ‘bugs’ in the EU release.”

Love the origami!

April 16, 2010 unexpectedly became a new watermark in my career as a game maker – Roger Ebert wrote an article about me.

Specifically, he dissected my TEDxUSC talk which I gave back in March 2009.

I do want to state that I don’t think my talk was a perfect argument. It didn’t land in the right place in the end, and Ebert’s final quote in the article, which was taken from the last section of my talk and was not about games as art, but about the responsibility we have a media-creators in the 21^st century, validated my concerns that I didn’t connect the dots as cleanly as I hoped. But the TED mantra is to “give the talk of a lifetime,” so I decided to make some bold claims, take the discussion a few steps further, and hopefully engage people outside of the “choir” to come to their own conclusions. Again, Ebert’s article was extremely validating in that I at least achieved that goal.

I remember reading Siskel & Ebert movie reviews and watching their TV show as a young artist. To say that I’m flattered by Ebert’s attention to my talk and my ideas is an understatement; however, being a long-time follower of his work, I don’t think he went the full mile in this critique.

For the most part, his argument seems to wander through some extremely muddy waters of defining art. Although he even states, “But we could play all day with definitions, and find exceptions to every one,” it doesn’t stop him from dedicating 50% of the entry to going back and forth on the subject. Ebert seems to lump “art,” “artistic,” and “artistically crafted” all into one big ball, which I think confuses any discussion on the subject.

For instance, the only definition he offers for art in response to my own is “usually the creation of one artist.” But this doesn’t define anything except a process, and arguably two of the three examples of artistic games that I offered in my talk fit this definition: “Flower” having been created under the direction of Jenova Chen, and “Braid” having been developed solely by Jonathan Blow.

I’m assuming here he thinks films are an artistic medium, but he points to the documentary “Waco: The Rules of Engagement” as not being art, without offering up any explanation. (He also responded to a comment with “Very few films are art.”) I can certainly assume my own reasons as to why it’s not art, but if half of the discussion is on what he thinks art is and why games don’t fit that definition, clarity is important here.

But the final nail on this argument’s coffin is the point that many, many of the hundreds of commenters have already made – it doesn’t seem that Ebert has played many, if any video games. And if that’s the case, then his opinion on the subject isn’t relevant anyways. The title of my talk was “Video Games are Art – What’s Next” because I felt it was time to move past the discussion about whether games are an artistic medium.. Similarly, it’s time to move on from any need to be validated by old media enthusiasts. It’s good for dinner-party discussion and entertaining as an intellectual exercise, but it’s just not a serious debate anymore. As a rapidly growing medium, we game developers have so many other issues deserving of our attention.

Ebert asks me in the section on “Flower,” “Is the game scored? She doesn’t say. Do you win if you’re the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?” Well, it only takes you 2-3 hours to find out – about the same time you’d dedicate to a film! I’d be happy to send you a PS3 with a copy of the game installed on it so we can discuss in more depth.

Art is in the eye of both the creator and the beholder. And as those two groups of people grow and change, so will the definition and perception of art.

We’ve teamed up with the folks at Playstation Blog to run a contest that’s all about you. Your stories about Flower!

Here’s what you do: type up your essay about your Flower experience in 2000 words or less, and email it to myflowerstory@thatgamecompany.com before 9 AM (PST) on April 28. You just have to be 13 years old or older, and a legal resident of the United States or District of Columbia. In your email, be sure to include your name and date of birth.

The top 5 stories (judged on content and style of storytelling) will be featured in future Playstation Blog posts. The writers will receive $20 PSN Cards, and be ranked as incredibly awesome by us!

Click here for all of the rules & details.

Looking forward to hearing from you!