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Peruse the God of War copyright infringement judgment
The Hollywood Reporter has uploaded the 27-page judgment [PDF link] in the God of War copyright infringement case. The case was already revealed as dismissed last week, but the full document bestows all the gritty details upon us mortals. In her summary, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel notes, "An examination of articulable similarities between the plot, themes, dialogue, mood, settings, pace, characters and sequence of events of God of War and plaintiffs' works reveals far less similarity than would be required to overcome summary judgment, even if plaintiffs had proven access. Plaintiffs have pointed to no persuasive similarity in dialogue or narration that would suggest actual copying." Reading the entire decision reveals that Sony was on the money with its original assertion that alleged similarities were "inaccurate, incomplete, abstracted and/or misleading."
Jaffe loves Indiana Jones, wants Lucas to toss him the whip
Known for his adoration of the Indiana Jones franchise, Eat Sleep Play developer David Jaffe recently admitted that the adventurous Indy was a huge inspiration for his God of War work, and that he'd be willing to partner with LucasArts on an Indiana Jones project."There was, and will always remain until I get to do it, a desire to work with Indiana Jones in the interactive medium," Jaffe said in an interview with 1UP. "I would still to this day love to do that." Though not much more than a dream at this point, the designer has a plan hidden under his own fedora. "I have a great idea for how LucasArts could really take that property and do cool things with it, and if they're reading this, they should give us a call at Eat Sleep Play. We'd love to talk to them." We'd just like to say that we're with you, Jaffe. Call up those LucasArts folks, demand a meeting and pitch your heart out. While you're at it, follow your dreams and go after the Metal Gear franchise too. We've got your back.
Jaffe comes out for a unified game console standard
Vocal support in the industry for a single-console solution continues to gather steam, with roustabout game developer David Jaffe airing the case for an uber-system on his blog. On the surface, his arguments have some merit, but we feel the the case for a "unified" console begins to break down when you really examine it. If you will, let us play a bit of devil's advocate with Jaffe's case:"We have it with DVD, we had it with VHS. We have it with televisions (in the sense that- for the most part- every TV is capable of broadcasting the same signal). So what do we lose by having it for game consoles?"Jaffe seems to be forgetting that VHS only became the monopoly "standard" after a bloody battle with JVC's Sony's competing Betamax format (edit: brain fart). There was no consortium of companies deciding what would be "best" for the market -- competition simply decided that one format was overwhelmingly better for the price. Sony had similar near-monopoly control in the PlayStation 1 and 2 eras, and it was competition, not cooperation, that brought it about. And for every cooperation success story like DVD, there's a flop like Phillips/MCA's LaserDisc format.As for television signals, they require a monopoly of sorts because of the limited broadcast spectrum. When you take that away, you get the channel-building, selection-expanding competition between cable, satellite and FIOS TV services.
Jaffe gives brief update on God of War movie
Despite most video game movies being of pretty low quality, we actually think the God of War movie has the potential to be incredibly awesome. And thankfully, series' creator David Jaffe has just given us an update on his blog after he recently had lunch with the movie's producer."Some big news could be coming on that front soon but nothing set in stone yet," he wrote. "But yeah, the project is still alive! And looking strong!"While that's not much to go on, it's just great to know that work is still ongoing, and we can't wait to hear what kind of big news is on its way.[Via 1up]
Jaffe wouldn't mind a little involvement with God of War III
David Jaffe, creator of the original God of War, says he would love to be involved somehow with God of War III, even though he's no longer with Sony. He notes that if he could figure out how to freeze time and still make it home for dinner with the family -- and if Sony would let him work on the project -- he'd do it. Jaffe says that he had a "master plan" for the God of War story when he was still with Sony and that the Santa Monica team has his notes -- but whether they want to follow them is their choice.That's just one small part of a large interview done by GameDaily BIZ with Jaffe. In the full interview, he discusses his new studio Eat, Sleep, Play and what it's like focusing on medium-sized titles. There's a pretty frank discussion about how he just couldn't get into BioShock -- he blames being too focused on the "nuts and bolts of play mechanics." There's a lot more straightforward Jaffe talk too, but honestly, did you expect anything less?
David Jaffe's new games ideal for PSP
With Jaffe no longer bound by the chains of God of War, his newly formed independent studio, Eat Sleep Play, can work on smaller projects. Considering his desire to go back to smaller, pick up and play games, it appears that PSP is the ideal platform for Jaffe to begin with. (Jaffe previously worked on a canceled PSP exclusive called Heartland.) Speaking to Level Up's N'Gai Croal, Jaffe reveals "We're really more about fun, pick up and play, arcade, multiplayer, just having a really good time, at least on the Sony end."Although Jaffe has expressed interest in Sony's handheld, there's still no confirmation of what platform his next game will end up on. "We haven't announced if we're on Blu-Ray, if we're on PSN, if we're on handheld. All we've really announced is that we are exclusive to Sony in those areas for three titles."We'll keep you in the know.
Jaffe pops the top on Eat Sleep Play's Logo
Ever since David Jaffe announced he was striking off on his own with new development house Eat Sleep Play, there's one particular bit of information gamers everywhere have been clamoring for. No, not the company's first original title -- what gamers really want to see is the logo.Well, the day has finally arrived. At long last fans, well-wishers and hangers-on can check out the above logo, courtesy of Newsweek. Jaffe says the soda-bottle-cap logo represents "the heart and soul of what our company is all about ... fizzy, refreshing fun." Frankly, it makes us think of Popcap Games more than anything like that.Along with the exclusive logo reveal, Newsweek has also posted up the first two parts of a three-part interview with Jaffe wherein he talks up the financial possibilities of smaller games and bravely reveals that he doesn't know what the word "remuneration" means. Careful David... those internet trolls are real sticklers for vocabulary.Read - The logo revealedRead - Newsweek Jaffe interview (part II)
Jaffe's first indie game to be announced within 15 months
David Jaffe revealed the intentions behind the creation of Eat Sleep Play in a new interview with IGN. The plan to become independent was discussed for about a year, as Jaffe wanted to explore "spaces Sony is in, as well as in some spaces Sony is not.."Calling All Cars appears to be indicative of the direction Jaffe and Eat Sleep Play wants to go. "Sometimes the games we make will be smaller hardcore titles; other times we'll go for the casual market."Jaffe's desire to be independent from Sony doesn't indicate that he's going to make games for any other platform. Thankfully, the esteemed game director states: "We are exclusive with Sony for console and handheld. And we hope to be exclusive with Sony in those spaces for many years to come ... we love PSN and love downloadable games and would love to stay in that realm."So, when will we hear about Jaffe's first new game? Well, it looks like we'll have to wait. "My thinking is we should be ready to announce in the next 8-15 months."[Thanks, Random!]
Eat, Sleep, Play with Jaffe's new studio
David Jaffe and Scott Campbell are proud to announce the creation of their new studio. Jaffe, an outspoken developer, is famous for his work on the God of War series. Campbell, founder of Incognito, is receiving accolades for his latest project, Warhawk. Jaffe and Campbell have collaborated previously on the PlayStation downloadable game, Calling All Cars.Their new studio called "Eat, Sleep, Play" will be designing multiple games, exclusively for the PlayStation family of products. The first project is planned to release in 2008. In addition, the company will also be releasing Twisted Metal: Head On for the PlayStation 2, which will feature new levels not found in Black Part II, and a new documentary.Additional details aren't available yet -- but we're hoping that Jaffe and Campbell will be able to create games with just as much energy and creativity as they did when they were part of Sony's internal studios. The fact that they're still working exclusively with Sony is a huge win for us, and we can't wait to see what comes to fruition.[Update: Jaffe has updated his personal blog with some more info: "Again, we are working with Sony and that just feels great. We met with some other interested parties but at the end of the day, Sony is our home, our family, and we're really thrilled and honored they wanted to work with us and continue the relationship we've spent almost 15 years cultivating. So in many ways, it's like very little has changed, other than the pay cut."][Thanks, Glenn!]
Jaffe's warehouse pics possible studio space in Utah [update]
After swearing off blogging earlier this year, God of War and Calling All Cars mastermind David Jaffe returned weeks later to post images from what appear to be an abandoned warehouse. The pics have recently been confirmed to be in Utah, which just happens to be the location of Incognito, the studio Jaffe collaborated with on Calling All Cars. Jaffe's recent post on the future of videogames as "SHORTER, LESS EXPENSIVE" projects instead of marathon development periods may hint at the direction the studio will take when (if) it comes to life.Update: To clarify, Jaffe is not moving to Utah and is still an employee of SCEA. 1UP speculates the studio space could become a "full fledged company or [fill] a more focused role within Sony" and the idea of Jaffe traveling back and forth between Utah and San Diego (as he did with Calling All Cars) "sounds on-target". More here.
David Jaffe takes pictures of potential new studio
Remember that David Jaffe fellow? You must do. He's that guy that makes those games you love. Games like God of War and Calling All Cars. You must remember him. He had a blog, once upon a time, but it went dark about a month and a half ago. Made a rather scathing post after a certain website commented on him pulling Calling All Cars back just before launch to fix some bugs. Ah, now you remember. Good.Well it seems that the darkness that once shrouded his blog has been banished after a new post was made today. Jaffe clearly believes in the old cliche "a picture speaks a thousand words," so he's given us two of them. Words? No, pictures. The pictures show the insides of an empty building. Empty apart from one thing - potential. Could these be images of his new "small games" studio? Especially considering the title of the post is "coming soon." With a dedicated work space for Jaffe and his casual-games making cohorts, we could be seeing more games being produced by him at a much higher pace. We're intrigued to see how this turns out and will definitely be keeping an eye on his, hopefully frequent, blog posts from now on.[Via 1Up]
David Jaffe returns to blogging (but only with pictures)
After swearing off blogging over a month ago for reasons unbeknownst to us -- Jaffe's back! Wave your rollies in the sky and wave them side to side. Whoop, whoop! He returns to blogging with pictures and not words -- actually, not true, the title of the post is "coming soon". The post holds two pictures, the one you see above and one after the break. It's very avant-garde, what Jaffe is doing here; the pictures speak the words for us. It's blogging 2.0.What does it mean? Well, it's one man's struggle against words while probably showing his new office getting all fixed up. Or maybe they put gamers in the fishbowl off to the right side to observe their behavior, helping craft an optimal gaming experience. Obviously Jaffe is building a mystery and carefully choosing what to reveal. Or he's just building an office. One or the other, we're pretty sure.
Jaffe un-promises, Calling All Cars delayed
Like a little girl struggling to keep her favorite doll out of the garage sale bin, David Jaffe is returning to the world of Calling All Cars to make some fixes and revise some of the criticisms the title received via reviews, even after announcing that the title has gone gold, according to a post he left on the NeoGAF forums. The title, therefore, has been delayed for an unspecified time.The bug fixes concern network connection and voice chat issues. Jaffe apologizes, of course, and notes that the previously-mentioned release date was never official. ("Sony was kinda annoyed that I claimed 5/3 as release date," he said.) Would gamers have preferred the game be released on time with a patch promised at a later time? We're leaning towards no, given the importance of multiplayer in the game, although our opinions might sway depending on how long these two "key bugs" take to fix.
Calling All Cars is done, due out May 3
David Jaffe has announced on his design blog today that Calling All Cars (formerly Criminal Crackdown) has gone gold and is expected to hit the PlayStation Network on May 3. The game had been previously delayed for focus testing and other minor tweaking, but it now seems that Jaffe is happy enough with the product to let it go.Has it been worth the wait? Reviews are slowly coming in, but IGN is calling it "Sony's first truly original, must-have title on the PlayStation Network" and claiming it bests just about everything on Xbox Live Arcade. Strong words; we'll see for ourselves next week.[Thanks, Pete]
Shed a tear for Jaffe's Heartland
Newsweek's latest exchange with designer David Jaffe dredges up memory of Heartland, one of the industry's recent missed opportunities. In October 2005, when Heartland was known as 'Project HL', Jaffe went public with his goal to make gamers cry, describing his PSP epic as an examination of "what's happening with America and the military". A year later, Heartland was shelved and forgotten, until Jaffe squeaked out a few details in an interview with Entertainment Weekly last month. "Hearing myself talk about it now makes me a bit sad," lamented Jaffe, who was re-realizing that the would-be allegory that depicted a fictional Chinese invasion of the US would have been an important effort for the games industry -- and perhaps Western culture at-large.Our perception of what Heartland could have been has been damaged by Jaffe's often-manic outbursts. The designer essentially snuffed out all curiosity in the title when he spastically proclaimed last September that the future of the industry was in (in all caps) "SHORTER, LESS EXPENSIVE" games, beginning with his PSN launch pad Calling All Cars. Though the Calling All Cars delays will apparently cease by mid-May, the untimely delivery has led many of us to tune out Jaffe's banter. So, just as we've yet to join Jaffe's "pop songs" crusade (a belief that small-time games will pwn the market), we have little faith in the notion of his PSP tearjerker. Shame on us then for feeling a pang of sorrow -- that sudden urge to pour one out -- over Heartland, as Jaffe confesses to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal his reasons for abandoning the project:
"Heartland should do for the PSP what Halo did for the Xbox"
In a revealing chat with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, opinionated God of War and Calling All Cars developer David Jaffe spoke about his ambitious (but canceled) PSP game, Heartland. He revealed the political motivations behind the title, and why the game might have been too ambitious for its own good:"The game was very much a liberal person's response to the Bush administration and the war in Iraq ... [have players] feel what it must be like to have their own homeland occupied by another country. SCEA and I went back and forth over if we would ever say it was CHINA vs. AMERICA as they were a bit worried about being so literal ... As for Phil, his biggest issue was thinking a game so epic should be on PS3. But I was always pushing for PSP, saying that Heartland should do for the PSP what Halo did for the Xbox."Ultimately, Sony didn't provide the support that Jaffe needed to complete the game. Instead, Sony pulled resources from the title to place into the PS3 title, WarHawk: "If the team would have been the right size, we would still be in production with Heartland today. That was the main reason we killed it, not enough folks to make the game ... the main issue that made it clear that we could not continue was that WarHawk kept taking our team members as they were further along in production and were the top priority."Sony's admitted to focusing too much on PS3 at the cost of PSP development, and they've promised to change. With WarHawk nearing completion, could Heartland make a comeback?[Via 1UP]
Jaffe: fixing scoring gap reason for Calling All Cars delay
Insomniac Games (Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank series) interviewed David Jaffe (God of War) for the second episode of their new podcast, The Full Moon Show. Of note is Jaffe's explanation for the delay of his upcoming PlayStation Network title, Calling All Cars.Jaffe said that during playtests people were enjoying themselves more when the scores were close, rather than when the scoring gap was wide. He talked to some industry vets who had worked on a few Midway titles to see if they had any code that could be used to narrow that scoring gap, and sure enough they had some code."We certainly don't want to go into and put in tons of that, but we've gone in and added just a little bit," he said. He continued to say that his hope is folks who are within 20% of each other's skill levels to have very competitive matches. Jaffe also explained that this was the reason for another playtest, and if the code's effects are noticeable then they will take it out.Jaffe noted that they are still planning for a release during the month of April.The interview starts 21 minutes into the 2-hour podcast. Jaffe also talked about his frankness in discussion, his love of playtests (the fifth one is coming up) and his ambitious, now on permanent hiatus, PSP tearjerker Heartland. The podcast also includes updates on Resistance: Fall of Man and the upcoming Ratchet and Clank Future.[Via Aeropause]
GDC 07: Calling All Cars impressions
Calling All Cars, David Jaffe's upcoming PlayStation Store-exclusive game, was available for play on the GDC show floor. The game, which has you competing against up to three other players, has you controlling wacky cop cars trying to catch criminals. The game is easy to pick up, fast, and most importantly, totally fun.Playing with three other players resulted in a game of total chaos and mayhem. The cars were incredibly responsive, and the various weapons created constant clashes. The levels were highly destructible, encouraging players to enter total rampages.Be sure to check out Calling All Cars when it hits the PlayStation Store later this week.
Pajitnov, with needle and thread, wins Game Design Challenge
The game design challenge is an honored tradition four years in the running at the Game Developers Conference, pushing creativity in a competitive, humorous environment. This year's winner was Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov who managed to create a viable action-puzzler using needle, thread and cloth. He bested both David Jaffe (Calling All Cars, God of War) and last year's winner Harvey Smith. The following is a pseudo-live blog of the event from earlier this afternoon. Read on for a full description of each game proposed.
David Jaffe hates focus testing
Designer David Jaffe's latest blog entry, as vulgar-laden as usual, was a liveblog of his day at a focus test for Calling All Cars (previously Criminal Crackdown), an upcoming PlayStation 3 downloadable title. You won't find much in terms of new game details, but aspiring game developers could learn a lot from this manic entry. We know that some of you out there don't appreciate Jaffe's verbose language or feel like the designer, who's probably known best for God of War, hasn't "earned" his street cred yet, but naysayers can still walk away from this transcript with an understanding of the inordinate amount of anxiety put on game makers when they watch their projects get critiqued and criticized by various demographic representative, for better and worse, and how technical issues will vastly affect the situation.Calling All Cars is planned for a release next month in the range of $5 to $10.
