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David Jaffe on the Artist's Way
On the Newsweek site, 'Artist's Way' columnist N'Gai Croal interviews David Jaffe about God of War, his upcoming PS3 title, and ... why he does what he does. From the article: "Q: Can the fans draft you back into the director's chair on God of War or Twisted Metal, the way they have with Hideo Kojima on the Metal Gear series? A: No. Unless they want to draft me by paying me a lot of money. But, no. I don't work that way. Right now, I'm comfortable enough that I can say something as arrogant as that. One day, I may have no choice. Phil [Harrison, president of Sony Worldwide Studios] is a really big believer in this service. It's not just a place to put shovelware. It's our version of HBO original programming. Not everything is suited to a 50-megabyte Blu-Ray disc. It doesn't mean those games don't deserve a platform. This is probably the first time since the arcade days that games of this type have had a viable home. So far, Sony seems really supportive of me staying in this space."
HOLY SHIT! Blu-Ray discs are only going to be 50 megabytes large?
Is if Blu Ray format takes off, I can play Spyro and MGS1 for free/dirt cheap prices, and it by the will of allah drops to under $400 by the time I get out of the army in 2-4 years.
I can't see games with 50 gigs of content being viable. Someone has to be paid for producing that content which obviously has to be pushed onto the consumer.
I'm tired of hearing about this guy. Seriously. His claim to fame is one game that is incredibly violent and has some of the most inane jump puzzles these days. I have to admit the fighting is decent, but for me it doesn't even touch Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox. I can't wait for the PS3 owners to get their hands on Ninja Gaiden Sigma and play a good hack-and-slash game.
...?
Why is everybody quoting this guy? He made ONE good game and now he's some sort of expert??? I've stop reading articles about him the day I realized he was just being arrogant. Marc Rein of Epic is also falling in that category, tough he at least has severals hits (even though they're all called Unreal) and regardless of the controversy around some of his statements, he does make a valid point every now and then.
As for Jaffe, he mostly trash talks the competition and thinks he's some sort of god. I'm reading more about his guy than Miyamoto or Sakaguchi. What the
I knew the Goa'uld had fled to earth, but I thought the Jaffa were working on making their own government!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Is ShovelWare supposed to be Sony's counterpart to WarioWare?
which is why the majority of the industry is going the 'outsourcing way' for the creation of said 'drag-ass' development. it's a LOT cheaper to purchase / contract assets for any game project than it is to hire artists and get them to do it in-house.
especially content that is not specific to the gameplay - ie environments / props that type of thing that is just there to flesh out the gameworld.
gameplay specific content will probably continue to be created by the in-house team, but this means that you can have an in-house team focused on creating kickass 'up-front' content while keeping costs low for the filler content that every game needs these days to create the scale of worlds that gamers have come to accept.
Gekido's Lair
Jaffe seems to be slipping farther and farther away from sanity. I think the accolades he received from God of War have gone to his head. I'll always respect him for giving me the (good games in) the Twisted Metal series, but it is time the public stopped listening to him. His peers already did (which is why he went from developing God of War 2 to a string of abandonware PSP title).
The game he's currently developing looks rather unspired. He's going back to his car combat roots, but as Rogue Trip and Critical Depth testified, that success is not so easy to duplicate.