Jaffe isnāt shy about making his opinion heard. If he likes a game, he will shower his praise on the title, but he wonāt pull any punches when he sees something he doesnāt like. Usually, Jaffe has his opinions heard via Twitter, but sometimes 140 characters just doesnāt cut it.
Jaffe spoke with CVG about the current relationship between game journalists and developers. The quote is quite lengthy, but it has some great lines. Check it out below and let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.
The other day I downloaded a title on my iPhone for 99c called Sunday Drive. Itās about an old man and an old woman who are literally going for a f*cking drive. As they travel, they collect photographs of the memories of their life.
Itās amazing to me that game can exist alongside a mega-epic $80m title. We have a landscape that is allowing for that now. Whether youāre talking about that or what Jenova [Chen] and Kelly [Santiago] are doing with Journey and Flower ā two games I love ā or youāre talking about Uncharted 3, or Twisted Metal inbetween those, there really is a great variety both in price, distribution and content.
So when I hear that the industry seems conservative, I do push back on that a little bit.
That being true, I like everybody else have been wonderfully blown away by the tank scene in Battlefield 3 [shown off at EAās E3 conference]. But as I was sitting there ā and please know that Battlefield is one of my favourite series, so Iām not knocking on it, I mean, I really love it ā I realised that what most people are talking about is how amazing it looks, and that to me is potentially worrisome. Itās not that I donāt think DICE should get that kudos; they deserve it and their game looks beautiful.
Iām also not saying itās not going to be Game Of The Year, it might very well be. The artist and the programmers and everyone who scripted that sequence should be bought a round because itās great, great work.
But when you look to the press, you donāt hear them saying: āYeah, but as great as this looks and letās write about that and be very positive about that, youāre still kind of just sitting behind a turret and aiming and shooting ā and weāve been doing that since Battlezone.ā
Iām honestly not trying to be like, āwe need to be totally pure and forget graphics,ā but there is a balance to be struck. And when I hear people say that E3 looks conservative, to me, I donāt think the journalists have done a good enough job holding our ā as in developersā ā feet to the fire.
They should be demanding, and be able to separate themselves from certain elements. Take a film critic. Whenever you read Variety, at the end of a Transformers 3 review, theyāll say ātech credits are amazingā. They love it, and all those tech people on that movie will hopefully work forever because theyāre clearly geniuses in their field ā just like the guys who worked on the Battlefield tank sequence.
But above that, you also have āf*ck, this movieās boringā, āIāve seen it beforeā, āIt doesnāt workā. You know?
Iām not saying we should try to be like movies. But when they talk about stories, we could talk about gameplay ā and Iām not saying theyāre the same thing, Iām just saying thatās the meat that makes both mediums special. Theirs is character, emotion, storytelling; ours is interactivity.
We as developers are not pushed enough by the journalists that cover us. So when I hear that E3 looks conservative, I think that if critics demanded more on a continual basis ā if they applauded the graphics, applauded the tech, applauded the execution and the hard work of the team, but at the same time said more often that ā95 per cent of what weāre seeing is the same thingā ā it would start to get both readers and perhaps publishers thinking in that way. And as they did that, theyād start to reject things that might look great but really donāt offer anything new.
You know me. Iām not the guy saying āeverything needs to be Braidā. Iām not an indie guy. I like commercial titles, I love shooters. We certainly shouldnāt throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We donāt need innovation for innovationās sake. But entertainment should be demanding of us. It should be fresh and unique.
If more critics pushed for that, the interactivity at E3 would be what we were all talking about, not just the tanks.
Do you agree with Jaffe? Let us know in the comments below.