Jaffe explains why you don't see names on boxes

If I saw Jaffe's name on the box for anything, that'd almost guarantee a no-buy from me.

The guy's ego is big enough.

nobody cares.

He's talking about you Call of Duty 3.

Basically, all sorts of shady business tactics go down in the video game industry, from payola, to questionable licensing agreements, to just plain pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers in the name of increased sales. Hot damn I love video games!

God i hate that guy, I wish he'd just shut up

I've never bought a game because of a developer's name on the box. Every big name developer you can think of, from Shigeru Miyamoto and Yu Suzuki to Will Wright and Sid Meir, have made at least one crappy game, usually more. Past performance does not predict future results.

Lately, it seems the more a dev's name is bandied about concerning a particular game, the more likely that game will be a steaming pile.

I remember the Activision games on the Atari 2600 would have a photo and a brief bio about the lone programmer who made it.

I appreciate seeing "American McGee's" on the boxart because it warns me that the game is a steaming great turd and to steer well clear of it.

I think the consumer side of the industry is starting to pay attention to more than just title as we mature. I agree IN PART with Riccitiello that it takes more than one person to make a game, but in the last few years my friends and I have been paying a lot more attention to the development studio behind a game or franchise. That, I feel, is where the value lies -- the "actors" of the games industry are the studios.

Some examples:
1) Call of Duty -- Infinity Ward vs. Treyarch
2) Guitar Hero 1&2 (Harmonix) vs. GH3 (Neversoft)

And you get studios like Irrational-aka-2KBoston (Bioshock), Bethesda (Elder Scrolls), and Bioware (KOTOR, Mass Effect) - among others - who have made a name for themselves by putting out consistently good games regardless of content. Everything Blizzard touches turns to gold, and Tim Schafer's Doublefine are also high on my list.

As games get more and more expensive and gamers themselves get older and more savvy, we're starting to investigate what we buy more thoroughly. Yeah, Jaffe's got a point that Fantastic Four outsold God of War (wtf, I ask you), and the games industry will always have the knee-jerk, tagalong crowd. The question is whether it can adapt to support the truly excellent developers, and whether the market will be there for those kinds of games.

The single biggest issue, in my mind, is convincing the publisher to back off. Blizzard and other companies have shown what happens when "when it's done" is more important than "holiday '08"... if publishers and gamers alike are willing to wait, we'll see some truly great products emerge - and we'll know which studios can create those products.

Basically the problem is that when the majority of people think of who "owns" a game, they think of the publisher. Legally, for example, Microsoft owns Halo just as much as Warner Brothers owns The Matrix. If Microsoft wants to make another Halo game without Bungie, they can. If WB wants to make another Matrix without the Wachowski brothers, they can. But who is more likely to get away with it? When faced with the latter, most people will probably say "Matrix without Wachowski? Wow WB must be desperate for money" but upon hearing about another Halo the common reply would be "COOL ANOTHER HALO" regardless of Bungie's involvement.

The perfect example is Guitar Hero. In my experience extremely few people are aware that Rock Band is made by the same people as Guitar Hero 1 and 2, and that GH3 and after were all made by the Tony Hawk people. I remember reading dozens of people, when Rock Band was announced, complaining that they were copying Guitar Hero.

It's ridiculous how far a publisher will go to steer credit away from where it's due.

Ignore your personal feelings about this particular guy and give this a read it is actually very well thought out.

A couple things I would add to his film comparison though. (I took quite a few film class in school)
Studios started using stars names in ads and credits when they discovered people would pay to see the same person again and again. The studious followed the money.

I can't really see the majority of the public becoming that devoted to a particular game maker anytime soon unless some sort of artistic theory forms around games similar to autuer theory in film studies.

Damn you, Warren Robinett! Your actions in "Adventure" brought this on us all!

On the other hand, Sid Meier's name on a box drums up sales in it's own right. You could get a game called 'poo flinging', but as long as it was 'Sid Meier's Poo flinging', people would buy it (and it'd be an awesome strategy game).

Depends whether your name is better than the name on the box or not.

Sid Meir's name is more a franchise at this point, it's like the Call of Duty brand. Whether it's Pirates, Alpha Centauri, or Civilization, or some other game, if it says Sid Meir on it, you have an expectation of what the gameplay is going to be like and that it's going to suck up a lot of time. You're getting your money's worth. You'd buy Sid Meir's Tomato Eating, and you know it.

American McGee's name is on games because without his name, they wouldn't sell. And every time it happens, his name is diluted.

I think it's telling that Peter Molyneux has never put his name above the title. Even though he's intimately tied to the promotion and marketing of his games, once it's on the store shelf, it stands on it's own.

It was bad enough for a writers' strike affecting my viewing habits, but it would be ten nay eleven times better than losing game playing time to a game developers strike.

Hmm... names on boxes sound like they would be a good thing for us then...

i like jaffe, if his name were on the box of a game i knew nothing about i'd take time to find out. i also feel it's important for everyone who who worked on something to get credit. we've seen where that didn't happen a few times lately.

Oddly Electronic Arts, now your go to place for faceless game churnoutening started off using the name above the title aprroach and telling people a great deal about who made the games.

And it worked! It let them get big enough that they no longer needed to do that and could replace all of their name developers with super high tech androids that made games like Krush! Kill! Destroy! or, you know, Madden.

I'm pretty sure Bungie is the name of the director of Halo >_>.

On MGS2, 3, and 4, Kojimas name is on the box. You lose Jaffe.

GTA, Halo, Gears of War, COD IV, all good games in their time if not still. That's why they sold and why the title and series continue to sell. Knowing who's who behind the scenes is nerdy entertainment, but the arising in stature and game-developer celebrity happens AFTER the game is a hit. In terms of sales -- sure each of those developers will proudly wear those feathers in their caps and try to leverage their success for more money and better jobs, but I am doubtful that any of their names has a big affect on sales.

It's just like marketing. I work at a design studio and we don't put our name on anything. If someone doesn't like something or the company gets a bad rep, we don't want to be associated with it. I would imagine it'd be the same as games. If Boom Blox completely tanked, would you still buy Steven Spielberg games?

Guitar Hero does not like its dirty secrets being outted to the public.

Granted Shigeru Miyamoto is almost a sure bet for a good game... (key word: ALMOST)