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?

Oh, well it's online fortunately, so you can always look it up.

Yeah, I'll look it up. But anyway, the first few days there was a sense of not regret, but a little bit of sadness. Now it's just, "We're all so excited to be doing this." This is really something I think I should have done right after God of War finished. I really enjoyed working on Calling All Cars. I'm really proud of how that product came out. But the reality of it is there's been about a year and a half of me sort of denying the inevitable. I was really meant to do this after God of War wrapped up.

I remember being at the DICE conference in 2006 where you talked about the process of making God of War. You also talked about being torn between wanting to strike out on your own and wanting to be better compensated for your work relative to how people are compensated in other entertainment industries, but not necessarily wanting to leave Sony for that better compensation. At the same time, I'd been hearing through the grapevine about the challenges facing developers like Lorne Lanning, who couldn't get the same kind of deals they'd gotten in previous generations to make the games they wanted at the budgets they wanted and still retain ownership of their IP. So as I was listening to your comments, I remember thinking to myself "Dave sounds naive, but he's not naive about his naivete," if that makes sense.

Fair enough, yeah.

There was a wishfulness that it could be the way you wanted but a sense that it couldn't. What was going on at the time with you professionally and personally? What were you thinking about in terms of striking out on your own?

Well, the thing that's important to be aware of in that respect is that I've seen people online today and in the last couple of days since we've made the announcement saying, "Oh, well now he's going to get to have creative control. That's why he's doing this." And it's like, that's so incorrect. Since I've started—and it speaks less to me and more to my bosses in sort of how much faith they had in me at Sony—I've pretty much had 95 percent creative control over the projects I've worked on. I mean, yeah, every now and then there's a sticking point we have to go to battle over. But it really wasn't about that.

So at DICE, the struggle was like I get half of the puzzle. I'm allowed to be expressive and creative and I get the fame as it is in the videogame industry that comes along with that. Sony doesn't deny that to me or the team, so I was getting all of that. But the struggle at the time was like, "You know, I'm never going to make much more money than I'm making now." And it's not that I was poorly compensated; it was that I was looking at what the titles that I had played a significant role in were contributing to Sony's bottom line, and then I was looking at my bonus checks—which were very lucrative compared to other companies to be sure. But there was still such a significant discrepancy that I was like, "You know this just doesn't sit well with me," you know, in a soulful way.

It was like, "Okay now, Jaffe, come into work and do it again. Give us another title that makes us that much money,"—not that it's all me, but in terms of my contributions—and I was like, "I can't." I couldn't do it anymore. It was literally a sort of depression where my spirit or my brain was like, "Yeah, we're going to kind of shut you down a little bit because there's no f---ing way you're going to do that again." That's what was going on at DICE.

Since then, there's been a couple of things. A shift has begun to occur in the industry where there is more excitement and more money floating around for smaller games. Not just from a financial standpoint, but there is an emerging audience for those kinds of games both from the hardcore nature—things like Geometry Wars and Calling All Cars—as well as on the much more casual side like Bejeweled, Mystery Case Files and things like that. And when you look at the budgets of those games, the ability to actually create games in that space with your own money becomes a very realistic proposition.

That opens up a whole new world of financial possibilities. You're able to make games for a publisher quicker, recoup your cost and then get into royalties quicker—and then with those royalties you can actually fund the next game. Or with your own money that you already have, you can actually fund the game. If you are fortunate enough to make a good game that connects with the public—be it the casual public or the hardcore public—whether or not you're making your money off of royalties, you can give yourself a much better deal because you own the IP. Potentially you're even publishing it. Or if you're building a company that owns several IP that are really powerful and lucrative in that space, there actually begins to be the possibility of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And for me, that was enough to go "Okay, there is this window that has opened up," and maybe we'll make it through the window. Maybe we won't.

The casual space, as exciting as it is and as much press as it has gotten, certainly hasn't yet generated the kind of revenue yet that a lot of people are excited that it might. It could be the next mobile phone scenario where it really never takes off. But even if you look at it on the PC download side, with hits like Diner Dash and Bejeweled, there's certainly money to be made in that space. I would rather take the pay cut that we're taking to form this new venture, and I would rather risk a lot of the security that we have here at Sony to actually have the opportunity to have both pieces of the puzzle. So that's the long answer.

We like long answers.

There you go. Those are the only kind I can give unfortunately.

You mentioned what people have been saying online. I understand you what you're saying about the money. I remember getting my first job out of college and I'd never been taught to negotiate, so I didn't. And a friend of mine got more money working essentially the same position because he negotiated. That taught me, "You know what? It's always about the money." Even when it's not about the money, it's always about the money. But a lot of those same people online are going to look at what you just said and turn it into "It's just about the money," or "It's only about the money." Not that you even care what people think but-—

I do care. That's not accurate. Sure, I care what people think. I'd love it if I could find a way to be honest and truthful and not give people the PR spin and at the same time be as liked as [Nintendo design legend Shigeru] Miyamoto and Cliffyb [Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski]. I'd love that. That would be awesome to have people who don't take swipes at me every five f---ing sentences I say. But I'd rather be honest than give you a bunch of PR bulls--t because that stuff makes me physically ill. But I know your question and there's two answers to that question.

The first one is I would have continued doing passionate, exciting work—at least that I found passionate and exciting—whether I'm a Sony employee or not. I appreciate you asking the question, because for me it's just a given. It would never occur to me to bring it up to you. The money—doing something for the money only works for me if the first part is taken care of which is, "Am I doing work that I'm excited about and jazzed about and that I think is really cool?" And so that is always the first part, because I would never do anything for money unless it was a means to an end, which was to allow me to sort of sustain myself creatively.

I mean, that's the way I'm raising my kid. I told my kid the other day, she was asking-—it doesn't matter; I'm not going to get into personal stuff. But the point is I'm always telling them, "Look, you either do a job you love or you do a job you don't love with the express intent of getting money so you can do a job that you love." It never occurs to me to speak to that, because it's just so much part of me that of course I'm going to be coming into work—whether it's Eat Sleep Play or whether it was with Sony—and doing work that I feel is really exciting and really, really cool. And so assuming that that part had already been taken care of, which it was in both cases, then it was "Okay, now let's deal with the money issue," because it's a business and that's a very real aspect. Like I said, when I see the kind of money that these titles generate for the company, just doesn't seem fair for a significant number of contributors to those titles not to get theirs.

So that's my answer to that. Yeah, there are going to be people who turn it into "It's about money for Jaffe," and it's unfortunate, because that's not the case. But money is a part of it. Money is certainly an aspect of it, absolutely.

Next: Jaffe expands on his plans for Eat Sleep Play--and explains why he's so upfront about his exit strategy. For Part II of our Q&A, click here. To see his company's new logo, click here.