Jaffe: Game Execs Need a BS Filter

[The Wooster]

Jaffe: Game Execs Need a BS Filter

Outspoken developer David Jaffe reckons it's easy to "bamboozle" game execs with impressive-sounding jargon.

Speaking at the 2012 D.I.C.E Summit, Jaffe made a point of how easy it is for developers to trick execs into loosening the purse strings by making unrealistic promises.

"It's real easy to bamboozle you," he said. "It's really easy to sit in a pitch and talk about 'I want the realism and grittiness of Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy and I want to put it on a space ship and make you feel like Tarantino and speak to the human condition'. And you walk out of the meeting and you give them the green light because you can see that in your head."

"You guys need to get a bullshit filter and you need to get that before you waste any more money," he continued.

Jaffe argues that publishers are so removed from the game development process and so uneducated about the products they're potentially funding, that they can't tell which developer claims are realistic or even feasible.

"You better start learning gameplay language," Jaffe continued. "It's not to be mean spirited, I would never do that, but you can actually sit with developer and say 'it's cool that you want to do that but tell me how.' If you come in with an awareness of that, if you're an executive that can suss that out, that's great. You don't want to have a developer romance you with the promise of something more than it will ever be and it ends up not being that."

He went on to discuss gaming's place when it comes to storytelling and narrative, eventually concluding that writers with a "story to tell" should look to a different medium.

"A lot of these people will say 'I have something to say, I have a story to tell.' If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?" he said.

"Why wouldn't you write a book, why wouldn't you make a movie? It's like being one of the world's best chefs and working in the world's best restaurants, you ply your trade in McDonalds."

Ouch.

Source: GameIndustryBiz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-02-09-jaffe-games-execs-need-to-get-a-bullshit-filter]

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[Lord Beautiful]

It looks like his girl isn't going to be the only one fellating him this month. Gentlemen, I think I've developed a new man-crush.

 

[hooksashands]

I know this guy thinks he is giving 'realistic' advice, but he's just being cynical, even jaded. No, it's not easy to fit meaningful dialogue and characters into a videogame story, but we've been shown it can happen.

Someone bring him his Happy Pills before he starts agreeing with Roger Ebert.

 

[Something Amyss]

No, it's not easy to fit meaningful dialogue and characters into a videogame story, but we've been shown it can happen.

And some experiences will only be realised through interactive media.

 

[JohnDoey]

I can't really argue with him on that.

 

[s_h_a_d_o]

"If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?"

Petulant much?
Thank goodness there are people around that actually have the initiative, drive and talent to accomplish such a goal.

Perhaps Mr Jaffe requires a [outgoing] BS filter himself?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

"A lot of these people will say 'I have something to say, I have a story to tell.' If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?" he said.

"Why wouldn't you write a book, why wouldn't you make a movie? It's like being one of the world's best chefs and working in the world's best restaurants, you ply your trade in McDonalds."

*clears throat* Exscuse me, sir?

Bioshock.

That will be all, sir.

EDIT: Or, to use one of Jaffe's own games, the original God of War was a tale of loss, revenge, redemption, and despair. Did it have pulitzer dialogue? No, but when you can SHOW INSTEAD OF TELL, YOU DON'T NEED IT.

 

[Irridium]

Video games are a great place to express philosophy, story and narrative. It's just that most developers are trying to do it how it's done in movies, instead of using the tools games have.

Games have something every other medium does not. Interactivity. If you can use interactivity well, you can make a the most powerful narrative ever. Certainly better than anything in books, movies, and all that.

See: Bastion and Valve games

It's a damn shame so many developers aren't using it to their advantage. Instead trying to do the same thing as movies/tv shows.

And yeah, some people don't like games that focus on philosophy and story and all that. That's fine. We can't all like the same thing. But I see no reason why we can't have both the narrative-focused games, and gameplay-focused games, and everything in-between.

 

[Avatar Roku]

A lot of these people will say 'I have something to say, I have a story to tell.' If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?

It's not like it's going to get any better with that attitude.

 

[Roserari]

Jaffe, that last part really shows you still have a lot to learn. Story through gameplay. Philosophy through gameplay. Something as simple as battle conditions can show your philosophy, also through the punishment if those conditions are broken.

For say, killing an innocent will cause your Mentality meter to decline. Reach zero, character has a meltdown.

 

[Harker067]

To sum up my impressions particularly of the end of the story... "Its hard and I'm not very good at it so you shouldn't bother trying". To which I reply, nothing ventured nothing gained. There have been some games that I have found truly powerful over the years who's story really touched me. Quite frankly I think the bigger problem is the stench of mediocrity over gaming. Of people taking the safe route and settling for just being ok. There are flawed games like advent rising or Indigo Prophecy which I have found memories of because you can tell they tried to be great.

 

[Waaghpowa]

For the most part, I can agree with him. Some parts, I can't.

I particularly agree with this.

Jaffe argues that publishers are so removed from the game development process and so uneducated about the products they're potentially funding, that they can't tell which developer claims are realistic or even feasible.

Coupled with my belief that some publishers are just plain wasteful.

 

[BrotherRool]

Ha, would Snake crawling through the microwave corridor been nearly as epic if I wasn't frantically mashing triangle? Snake needs me to exist.

 

[Baresark]

He has it wrong. It's not that they are removed the development (not entirely anyway), they are too close to sets of data that tells them past trends, then they try to anticipate the future. It's a cognitive illusion created by the fact that they think they know history, but they don't.

First: is that the only picture of Jaffe there is, he looks like a high seventeen year old boy.
Second: He talks like a high seventeen year old boy.
Third: He is completely wrong that videogames aren't for telling stories. Many are, and many do it very well. No one denies Final Fantasy tells a story that is more or less considered good each iteration. The thing that brings people down on them is gameplay mechanics. Videogames are just one more medium to tell a story besides books or movies.

 

[PureIrony]

Hard as it is to say, he's got a massive point. This is most certainly not the medium to go to for storytelling these days. Even our best narratives have a very bad tendency of lacking depth, and with the way development cycles work these days, with enormous budgets and a general lack of preproduction ensures makes it damn near impossible to get a story out that doesn't have at least have a few kinks.His point stands. If someone has a story to tell or wants to make a difference with their story, its damn near impossible to do it through a game.
And can we really say that God of War really worked as a Greek Tragedy, I mean really worked, when it was so saturated in gore and male power fantasy that no one noticed until that Extra Credits episode?

Its not like GoW made anyone think when it came out.

 

[CleverCover]

I could see his point for the first part. In order to communicate with a group of people, its best to learn their lingo so you know when something good or bad is happening. Not every publisher can do that or there would be a lot less distrust floating around.

The second part was seriously wrong. I know it's his opinion, but to say that a great story to rock the ages cannot be told through a game is false. Everyone has that game that they hold dear to their chest because it moved them so much. It isn't impossible. It just takes skill, work, and luck to find the right chords.

Im tired of everyone saying books or movies is where you go for the real groundbreaking things. It's not true. You can make a horrible book and a horrible movie trying to process this great story of love, suffering, romance, new life and struggle.

Ex: Twilight

 

[gigastar]

"If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?"

Petulant much?
Thank goodness there are people around that actually have the initiative, drive and talent to accomplish such a goal.

Perhaps Mr Jaffe requires a [outgoing] BS filter himself?

Time for me to talk about the one glaring flaw i hold against Okami. The story.

Its not that its crap, beacuse its brilliant.

Its not that its full of plotholes, because it largely isnt. And Okamiden went on to mend most of them, including time-travel paradoxes.

Its that theres so damn much of it. You spend roughly half the game reading the dialouge alone and none of it is skippable due to it all coming together at the very end to mean something.

If i had to force out a metaphor for it, its king of like eating through 8 kilograms of lettuce to get a single bar of Green & Black's chocolate.

 

[Jingle Fett]

I agree with the first part but not so sure about the second part. Movies have been around for over 100 years. Books have been around for millenia. I'm sure people said the same thing about movies when they first started; if you want to tell a real story, you do it with books.

Lol when I first read the title, I thought it was that Jaffe needed a BS filter.

 

[Zhukov]

He's dead right about the narrative thing.

I'm glad that a few people are trying to put decent stories in games, but damned if I know why they bother.

 

[Mike Richards]

I hate when developers throw things around like this like there are things you must always do and must never do when designing a game. The idea that there are any absolutes of the medium that are always held true is just so much pretentious bullshit, made rather ironic by what he was talking about to begin with.

Talk like that does nothing but hold us back.