14 DAY TRIAL // Every now and then, someone has a breaking idea and comes up with a great product that didn't even take too much time and money to create. It has to do with intuition and creativity and although video game developers and designers have plenty of that at their disposal, they still hit a bump in the road when it comes to small titles, such as Super Stardust HD. In an interview with NewsWeek's N'Gai Croal, creator of God of War, David Jaffe has a few thoughts regarding this issue, commenting that small video games need their "Blair Witch" moment.
"You know, these smaller games are interesting," said Jaffe when he was asked what he thought that needed to happen to elevate smaller games, as far as the PR front and the marketing front were concerned. "They sort of merit an appreciative nod at worst and like you said, a grassroots fan base at best. But there hasn't been a game on either system yet that I think has really been able to compete with the noise of big games like say Grand Turismo or Heavenly Sword or God of War or whatever.
And so I think until that happens, until we as the makers and creators of smaller games are able to find a way to bust through the noise of the bigger games, then that will continue to happen. Looking at the movies, you rarely hear about an independent film over the roar of the big summer movies. But every now and then an indie film is so good and so compelling and so interesting that it does become what people are talking about, and that is the thing that gets the push and the cover of Entertainment Weekly, when "Blair Witch" gets on there or something like that."
Of course, you don't have to be in the business to come to this conclusion, but it does apply to small video games very well indeed. However, it's very difficult to draw the line between small games and casual games. That's one of the aspects that needs taking care of. For instance, Jaffe's much criticized Calling All Cars is by all means a small title. However, it doesn't fall under the "casual" category and then if the game (not Jaffe's in particular) still doesn't do good (assuming there's nothing wrong with it) then the problem lies with promoting the respective game, not with the developers.