David Jaffe Calls on Game Critics to Get Tougher

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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David Jaffe Calls on Game Critics to Get Tougher

The gaming press should be pushing developers to try new things, the God of War creator says.

David Jaffe thinks that the gaming press needs to start getting tougher with developers and publishers. He feels that if journalists spend more time calling out the lack of innovation in modern games, it might go some way to improving the state of the industry.

Jaffe pointed at the tank scene from Battlefield 3 that EA showed off at E3. He applauded the skill and artistry of the scene, but said that he hadn't seen anyone calling DICE out for creating yet another turret section, something that developers have been doing since the 1980s arcade game Battlezone. He compared the situation to movie reviews - he singled out Transfomers: Dark of the Moon as an example - which would praise the visual effects, but criticize the movie for being boring or predictable.

"I'm not saying we should try to be like movies," he said. "But when they talk about stories, we could talk about gameplay - and I'm not saying they're the same thing, I'm just saying that's 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," he added. "I think that if critics demanded more on a continual basis ... it would start to get both readers and perhaps publishers thinking in that way. And as they did that, they'd start to reject things that might look great but really don't offer anything new." Jaffe added that he liked commercial games and shooters just fine, and that he didn't want innovation just for its own sake, rather he wanted the press to challenge developers to push themselves.

While plenty of people would agree that game critics could stand to be a little tough, Jaffe is perhaps being a little optimistic about how much sway the gaming press actually has. Going back to Jaffe's rather apt comparison to the Transformers movies; reviewers savaged the first two films, but they still made millions and millions of dollars at the box office. As much as we might wish it were different, a critical press can only do so much against a multi-million dollar marketing campaign.

Source: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/306992/news/david-jaffe-games-critics-must-get-tougher/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-News-RSS]


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ultrachicken

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Dec 22, 2009
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Dafid Jaffe Calls of Games Critics to Get Tougher
Some typos in the title, there.

OT: I think that people who actually pay attention to game critics are more likely to notice lack of innovation on their own.
 

Iron Lightning

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Oct 19, 2009
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He is absolutely correct and I'm only commenting here to polish the knob of a person who extolls the value of innovation.
 

TheGuy(wantstobe)

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Dec 8, 2009
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Unfortunately as a developer and not a publisher his words hold as much sway as yours or mine. at the moment it's "You give our game a bad review you don't get a review copy of the next one and good luck getting something else to replace the hits that would have generated." Or my personal favourite "You gave our game a bad review score so we're pulling all our advertising if you don't pull it and change it right now."

Broken industry is broken
 

9thRequiem

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Sep 21, 2010
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Absolutely, innovation is great, and we need more of it. This isn't exactly groundbreaking.

But innovation isn't enough - taking a new novel concept and making anything based on it is one thing, but that game still has to be good on it's own merits.
Given a choice between a game that is good and fun, but nothing new, against a game that is new and unique, but bad, I pick the former.

Also : Has the God of War series made huge strides through it's sequels? At all? Or has it just been pretty much the same, but scaled up a bit.
 

Furism

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I used to review games for a french gaming website, and I never, absolutely never, gave a rating above 8 unless the game was exceptional - and I never reviewed that qualified for that. I feel that a game that does nothing special (like any CoD spin off) should get the average rating (5/10, 10/20), not a 8/10 by default. However a game like Minecraft would get above-average rating because it's starting from nothing and tries to do something different. Sure it looks like shit but at least they're trying. EA, Activision, THQ are not trying any more, they simply milk franchises or variations of gameplay and the rating should reflect that.

The Escapist is sometimes guilty of that too (I'm looking at you, DA2 review) sometimes, but hey, you gotta live and apparently there's no other way than getting exclusive information. TE is my favorite online magazine (heck I even subscribed) because the news are simply just great, and I don't really care if they release an information 1 day before GameSpot. But investors probably don't look at it this way.

Anyway, I lost my train of thought I think.
 

Furism

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Sep 10, 2009
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TheGuy(wantstobe) said:
Unfortunately as a developer and not a publisher his words hold as much sway as yours or mine. at the moment it's "You give our game a bad review you don't get a review copy of the next one and good luck getting something else to replace the hits that would have generated." Or my personal favourite "You gave our game a bad review score so we're pulling all our advertising if you don't pull it and change it right now."

Broken industry is broken
For the first excuse, buy the damn game yourself and trash it if it's bad, or don't if it's good. But make sure you mention at some point that the publisher tried to arm wrestle you. For the second though, it's true they're kind of screwed. There's only so much hardware ads you can have.
 

LavaLampBamboo

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Jun 27, 2008
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9thRequiem said:
Also : Has the God of War series made huge strides through it's sequels? At all? Or has it just been pretty much the same, but scaled up a bit.
I thought that too, but Jaffe actually left after the first game, which, in a way, was innovative at the time.

However, isn't he currently working on the new Twisted Metal game? That's not exactly the most innovative series in the world. But He has a point, journalists do have the power to affect the industry.

Let's just hope they use it FOR GOOD! =D
 

Phorkias

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Feb 18, 2010
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9thRequiem said:
Also : Has the God of War series made huge strides through it's sequels? At all? Or has it just been pretty much the same, but scaled up a bit.
Jaffe was just on the first one.
 

9thRequiem

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Sep 21, 2010
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LavaLampBamboo said:
9thRequiem said:
Also : Has the God of War series made huge strides through it's sequels? At all? Or has it just been pretty much the same, but scaled up a bit.
I thought that too, but Jaffe actually left after the first game, which, in a way, was innovative at the time.

However, isn't he currently working on the new Twisted Metal game? That's not exactly the most innovative series in the world. But He has a point, journalists do have the power to affect the industry.

Let's just hope they use it FOR GOOD! =D
That does explain away the hypocrisy. Comment rescinded!

In that light, could this be seen as something as a stab at the repeated GoW sequels? That he's not exactly pleased at seeing his creation get repeatedly cloned?
Perhaps additionally at all the "LIKE GOD OF WAR BUT" games ...
 

LavaLampBamboo

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Jun 27, 2008
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9thRequiem said:
LavaLampBamboo said:
9thRequiem said:
Also : Has the God of War series made huge strides through it's sequels? At all? Or has it just been pretty much the same, but scaled up a bit.
I thought that too, but Jaffe actually left after the first game, which, in a way, was innovative at the time.

However, isn't he currently working on the new Twisted Metal game? That's not exactly the most innovative series in the world. But He has a point, journalists do have the power to affect the industry.

Let's just hope they use it FOR GOOD! =D
That does explain away the hypocrisy. Comment rescinded!

In that light, could this be seen as something as a stab at the repeated GoW sequels? That he's not exactly pleased at seeing his creation get repeatedly cloned?
Perhaps additionally at all the "LIKE GOD OF WAR BUT" games ...
Perhaps he just wants reviewers referring to QTE as "God of War style Quick Time Events" =D
 

Professor James

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Aug 5, 2010
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Madara said:
Yeah, he says that till they trash his game. Then he will whine like a little *****.
Good game critics are rare, hell in my entire time I have only come across one that I actually respect and he is one of the most hated critics around.
Who is it?

OT: I agree with Logan that he's overestimating the amount of sway the gaming press have.
 

LightspeedJack

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May 2, 2010
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Yeah most reviewers are too eager to slap a 9 on something that it is last year's game but a bit shinier.