Eat Sleep Play co-founder David Jaffe

Straight, no chaser, with a dash of profanity: that's the best way to describe a conversation with noted videogame designer David Jaffe. This summer, having previously stated a desire to produce "pop songs" (shorter, more arcade-y games like Calling All Cars) instead of the "operas" (big AAA franchises like Twisted Metal and God of War) that he'd been known for, Jaffe announced his departure from Sony Computer Entertainment to start up a new company called Eat Sleep Play with former Incognito boss Scott Campbell. As with Bungie and Microsoft, ties remain between Eat Sleep Play and Sony, in the form of an agreement for Jaffe's new shop to produce three games for Playstation platforms; separately, he also plans to make short session games for the PC.

Back in July, on his last day as a Sony employee, we spoke with Jaffe over the phone in what would prove to be a wide-ranging discussion covering why he felt he had to leave Sony; how developers are currently compensated; and what he hopes to accomplish at Eat Sleep Play. In Part I of our three-part Q&A with Jaffe, he explains the circumstances that led to his departure from Sony to co-found Eat Sleep Play, why both money and creative freedom matter to him tremendously—but not necessarily in that order—and why he wishes that he could be as beloved as Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and Epic Games' Cliff "Cliffyb" Bleszinski. Read on.

You were just telling me that you're walking into your soon-to-be old office. How does it feel to be leaving Sony?

Let's see. It's weird because in so many ways not a lot is changing. I mean, I'm still working with the same team, in the same capacity. I've worked with those guys at Incognito; we're just in the same company now. Me and Scott [Campbell], the co-presidents of Eat Sleep Play, are still reporting to Allen Becker who runs Santa Monica, so the day-to-day operations of our new business don't really change. So I don't think that part feels any different.

When I first told my boss that we were leaving, there was a little bit of nostalgia; not sadness because we're totally excited to do this and there's never been a question of should we do it. Once we made the decision to do it about eight months ago, we've never been like, "Yeah, let's rethink that." But I do remember driving from, Santa Monica back to San Diego and I had, downloaded the "Dreamgirls" soundtrack—it was kind of big at the time and I don't know if you've seen the movie, but there's this song they sing that on their farewell tour and that was playing right as I was driving away from Sony after I told my boss, "Okay, we're leaving." And I got a little misty eyed. What the hell was that song called?

We're pleased as punch to have comments finally working here on Level Up, and we intend to dip into the boards occasionally to mix it up with our vocal minority. But sometimes, as you'll see in a moment, a poster's statement or our response may warrant being elevated to post status so that it can be shared with a broader audience. This we will do under the new rubric "It Came From the Comments."

In response to yesterday's post titled "Objection! A Look at Far Cry 2 Creative Director Clint Hocking's Critique of BioShock," poster harrison25 praised BioShock for its graphics and its style, but decried its linearity and lack of meaningful challenge, saying in part:

it's hard to be immersed in a world when you constantly feel forced in different directions... ultimately no matter what the player wants to do, the player is forced to continue killing every living creature in every environment with the possible exceptions of the little sisters.

And:

I realize the goal was to create a living, breathing ecosystem that kept on existing even if you died, (fantastic) without some kind of penalty the entire game becomes trivial...

To which we replied:

harrison25, I hear your complaints. I think 2K Boston/Australia did a fairly convincing job of establishing the reasons why Rapture is so hostile. But you're correct to question why fight or flight is still our only option in such a well-realized world. As disappointing as it may be, the fact is that 3-D action-adventure games remain, for the most part, not very good at providing a broad array of options besides fight or flight. Like you, I found myself wondering what it would have been like to play a citizen of Rapture as it was on the brink of collapse, rather than an outsider who comes in after it's already fallen apart. We'll never know, but I see BioShock's enemy ecosystem and its handling of the Little Sister Dilemma as a pretty big baby step towards the kind of complexity that you're looking for.

As for the way that the game handled player death, I too had mixed feelings about it, but I ultimately backed the developers' decision because it made it possible for me to finish the game without devoting another 10+ hours to getting past any particularly tough spots. That said, I think they should have offered the option to turn off the Vita-Chambers and switch to checkpoint saves for gamers like you who wanted a tougher experience. Halo 3, with its Easter egg "skulls" that allow you to adjust the difficulty in interesting ways beyond its four standard settings (Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary), points the way towards a future in which players will be able to tailor any videogame to deliver precisely the kind of challenge they're looking to experience.

How do other readers feel about game difficulty and save systems? Are videogames becoming too easy? Or do you welcome developers who structure their games in such a way that you're more likely to complete them rather than get irrevocably stuck? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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