Jaffe explains why you don't see names on boxes

by Justin McElroy { Aug 15th 2008 at 9:30AM }

The issue of putting game designers' names on boxes is one that we've been exploring since we read this dazzling piece way back in 2005. But David Jaffe, playing off of a recent MTV post, is in a unique position to comment, as one of the few designers who have somehow been able to set themselves apart as a brand. His latest blog entry explores why more game designers don't make it on the box, and why it's in publishers' best interests to keep it that way.

Brace yourself, because this next quote is probably the truest, most succinct encapsulation of the current state of the game industry that you'll ever hear: "Even the guys who make CALL OF DUTY, HALO, and GTA are not in a perfect position, as amazingly genius as they are," Jaffe writes. "Because All of those games- even if given to C+ level developers- can still make crazy cash for at least 2-4 more iterations before the public catches on and stops buying the series."

This all goes to prove what we've expected all along: American McGee has to have blackmail pictures of somebody picking up a transvestite hooker, right?

Tags: david-jaffe, eat-sleep-play

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

dark_inchworm @ Aug 15th 2008 9:42AM

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.

Mike @ Aug 15th 2008 9:51AM

Did you buy Gears of War?

theturtle363 @ Aug 15th 2008 10:14AM

so what if he did buy it? I dont think anyone would buy that because cliffy b made it, i sure as hell wouldnt.

Vidikron (FU) @ Aug 15th 2008 10:21AM

His games are good, so what?

dark_inchworm @ Aug 15th 2008 10:23AM

Actually, I got Gears of War for free. :)

Mike @ Aug 15th 2008 10:50AM

Turtle, he said that he wouldn't buy a game b/c of the designer's ego. I was just wondering if he got Gears. BTW, 1 + 1 = 2. Man, I'm a sarcastic d!ck.

Misfit Toy @ Aug 15th 2008 11:21AM

Also worth noting...Jaffe was the creator of GOD of War, not GEARS of War. It is confusing because they both carry the same shorthand (GOW).

dark_inchworm @ Aug 15th 2008 12:01PM

haha, hellooooo SDF.

I wasn't being entirely serious, even though that tone wasn't at all obvious in the post. I'd still buy a Jaffe title if it was decent - I bought God of War (GOD of War) and that's a damn fine one, really. I still think Jaffe's a douche though.

I think Rivers Cuomo and Axl Rose are asswipes too, but that never stopped me from buying their music (their good releases, anyway).

Raikage (GOLDEN Gun Of The Patriots) @ Aug 15th 2008 12:26PM

LOL Rivers is kind of a jerk... but he's a socially inept
genius so what can you do.

With the release of Red, you can tell he's gotten better at playing nice.

Paul (PSN: heypaul) @ Aug 15th 2008 1:44PM

I thought Mike's comment was a reference to CliffyB's ego being just as big as Jaffe's, and if inchworm wouldn't buy a Jaffe game, he probably shouldn't buy a Cliffy game either. Or am I completely mistaken?

jsn @ Aug 15th 2008 9:48AM

nobody cares.

Mike @ Aug 15th 2008 9:51AM

False

Mike @ Aug 15th 2008 9:51AM

He's talking about you Call of Duty 3.

Boffo the Sock @ Aug 15th 2008 9:57AM

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!

theturtle363 @ Aug 15th 2008 10:13AM

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

Vidikron (FU) @ Aug 15th 2008 10:23AM

So he can't maintain a blog? And what was wrong with what he said here?

theturtle363 @ Aug 15th 2008 10:30AM

i hate personal blogs and everyone who has one, including David Jaffe.

XLM @ Aug 15th 2008 11:39AM

Wow, you hate Tim Shaffer and www.doublefine.com one of the funniest reads on the internet?

Sucks to be you.

Nick the Hero of Canton @ Aug 15th 2008 1:48PM

Then...why the fuck do you have 507 comments here?

Psyclerk @ Aug 15th 2008 10:17AM

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.

edgore @ Aug 15th 2008 10:20AM

But, but...John Romero!

Mez Jr @ Aug 15th 2008 11:22AM

While past performance does not always predict future results, it's the best way to predict that we have. I mean, we sure as hell can't trust reviews.

TomCo @ Aug 15th 2008 11:57AM

JOHN ROMEROS GOING TO MAKE YOU HIS BITCH

horngreen @ Aug 15th 2008 10:24AM

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

Alzheimers @ Aug 15th 2008 11:46AM

David Crane games were ALWAYS a must buy.

DrXym @ Aug 15th 2008 10:23AM

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.

Dan J @ Aug 15th 2008 10:28AM

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.

Noshino @ Aug 15th 2008 11:09AM

Thing is, Vivendi knew that Blizzard was their most important studio, so they gave them all kinds of freedom...

For example, out of the Nintendo's, Sony's and Microsoft internal studios, the only one that I know that is given this kind of freedom is Ueda, and that is more because his games give prestige to the PS brand.

Problem is, you need games, if you were to take your time to finish a game, then we might end up with more than 10 Duke Nukem Forever's, not only that, the costs to back up the projects would be much more than what they are now, so you would have even less games. If that was to happen, there are chances that we might end up with another video game crash...

- Too many high profile games with high costs and long development time
- Too many weak titles to compensate for the time in which there are no titles and to at get some profits

Zeromaru @ Aug 15th 2008 10:34AM

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.

Alzheimers @ Aug 15th 2008 11:52AM

Matrix without the Wachowski brothers? Bad example, as they pile-drived that franchise into the ground with the last movie.

Warner Bros. could do worse than to turn the Matrix franchise over to a guy like James Cameron or John Woo, or even Bruckheimer/Bay at this point.

Anam @ Aug 15th 2008 2:20PM

I just wanted to chime in and disagree that someone else should take over the Matrix. Yeah, the Wachowski brothers screwed it up, but I can't imagine anyone else making a good Matrix movie. It would be like trying to make a Terminator movie without... oh, wait.

McWeen @ Aug 15th 2008 10:34AM

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.

theturtle363 @ Aug 15th 2008 10:42AM

you, your logic, and rational behavior can just GTFO

McWeen @ Aug 15th 2008 10:44AM

Not that people check comments for real information but if anyone cares about the history of credits in film skip down to "Beginnings of the Star System"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_%28film%29

Noshino @ Aug 15th 2008 11:11AM

well, there is a flaw on your comment, Sid Meier, most of his games do have his name

holyice7 @ Aug 15th 2008 10:37AM

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

Markusdragon @ Aug 15th 2008 10:51AM

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).

FOXHOUND @ Aug 15th 2008 12:27PM

I'd buy that game. On STEAM. In Cleveland. At a Browns game. ;D

Ok, I'm done.

Sid Meier does attract my wallet though.

J.Goodwin @ Aug 15th 2008 10:59AM

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.

hvnlysoldr @ Aug 15th 2008 11:03AM

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.

Mr Khan @ Aug 15th 2008 12:12PM

The way games are developed, you wouldn't feel the effects of a developers strike now for practically a year

time @ Aug 15th 2008 11:15AM

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

j.howlett @ Aug 15th 2008 11:37AM

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.

edgore @ Aug 15th 2008 11:42AM

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.

Wiinterfang @ Aug 15th 2008 11:45AM

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

B3astofthe3ast @ Aug 15th 2008 12:06PM

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

John @ Aug 15th 2008 12:14PM

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.

Scotty @ Aug 15th 2008 12:43PM

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?