This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The maker of the hit game "God of War" is himself considered a god of video games by fans.
David Jaffe, 36, is one of the few genuine stars of video games - a George Lucas in the interactive entertainment industry. Bloggers and fans all over the country clamor to know what he'll do next - what kind of visceral experience he'll put in the twitching hands of gamers.
Then there is Scott Campbell, 45. As a video game creator living in Utah, he's not as well known in gaming, but his résumé is just as fat as Jaffe's. He and Jaffe created the blockbuster "Twisted Metal" series of car-combat titles for Sony and the recently released "Calling All Cars" for the PlayStation 3.
The two split for several years while Jaffe made "God of War" in Santa Monica for Sony, a sprawling, fast-paced game about a warrior of Greek mythology who fights for the gods. It became a mega-hit and, along with his outspoken opinions about the state of the industry, secured Jaffe's name among gaming's elite, along with Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario) and "Gears of War" designer Cliff Bleszinski.
Now, Jaffe and Campbell, who spent the better part of the last 14 years designing games for Sony, have partnered for good and formed their own independent studio in Salt Lake City.
It's called Eat Sleep Play, and they're likely going to be doing little of the first two so gamers can enjoy the third.
"Throughout the years, it [forming a studio together] has always come up . . . that it would be a pretty cool thing to do some day," said Campbell.
It was the next logical creative step in their ascension in the video game industry.
"For me, once 'God of War' finished, I felt I had sort of done all I could do as a Sony employee," Jaffe said from the duo's new 8,500-square-foot studio in the Salt Lake City Hardware Building north of The Gateway. "I felt like there was nowhere else really for me to go in terms of advancement - not just career advancement - but sort of personal, spiritual, soulful advancement."
The venture will allow them to control the intellectual property of the games they make, which means they stand to make more money off merchandising and licensing from the games' stories, characters and technology.
"If you work for a publisher, you're never going to own a piece of the pie," Jaffe said. "It became clear it was time to sort of take a shot at grabbing the brass ring on our own."
So it seemed like a "no-brainer" for Jaffe to join forces with his longtime business partner to create what they think their customers want. And both designers believe those are smaller, more manageable titles that people can download instead of buy off store shelves.
The trend is toward more casual, arcade-like games that are quicker to get into and have made downloadable services like Xbox's Live Arcade or Sony's PlayStation Network so popular. "Calling All Cars," a car-combat game where players from all over can race and shoot each other in a cartoon world, is an example - a game that can be downloaded off Sony's network for the PS3 for under $10.
"Now there is this window that's opening up that says here's this new kind of game that doesn't require you give up your life to play, it doesn't require you to be hardcore to play," Jaffe said. "It's about getting to the fun as soon as possible."
"Making a next-gen game is a multimillion-dollar proposition," said Clark Stacey, vice president for Smart Bomb Interactive, a video game studio just four floors below Eat Sleep Play. "They're getting into an area that is underserved by top-notch gaming studios. They'll be a shark in a pool of minnows."
Eat Sleep Play officially launched earlier this month, and its team of 20 programmers, modelers and artists already is hard at work making a PlayStation 2 version of the PlayStation Portable game "Twisted Metal," a way of getting the team's feet wet and helping secure the company financially.
After that, they're planning a new game for the PlayStation 3 (the first of three exclusively for Sony) with a "theme has me more excited than any game I have ever worked with," Jaffe said. "It just has a vibe and a look and a personality that I think is going to be really, really cool."
Their work dynamic is what will make the game successful, Jaffe and Campbell say. Jaffe sees himself mainly as the "creative go-to guy" while Campbell has his eye on making sure programmers meet deadlines and work flows efficiently.
But what's unique about this relationship is that while Campbell and the crew work feverishly in Salt Lake City, Jaffe works from his home in San Diego. They communicate daily via iChat Web cameras on their computers, and Jaffe will travel to Salt Lake often.
"I don't want to live in Utah," Jaffe said. "I grew up in Birmingham, Ala. Utah very much reminds me of Birmingham, Ala.
"It has to do with the fact that I already grew up in a medium-sized town," he added. "I like being in Southern California. I like the weather. I like the liberal attitude. I'm a very liberal person. I would have a real hard time raising my kids in an environment that is as conservative as Birmingham or Utah."
Campbell, who left the Sony-owned Salt Lake City studio Incognito to form Eat Sleep Play, loves living in Utah. He said starting the studio here instead of California made sense.
"The talent and the base team are here, and it's one of those things that if it ain't broke, don't fix it," he said. "There are a lot of testimonies from people we've located here who absolutely love it."
Intense guys and casual games
AFTER FINISHING "God of War,"(right) David Jaffe left Sony and co-founded a new gaming company called Eat Sleep Play here in Salt Lake City with video game creator Scott Campbell. He and Jaffe had previously created the hit "Twisted Metal" games for Sony. One of their latest efforts, "Calling All Cars," (left) is a casual game that can be downloaded off Sony's network for the PS3 for just under 10 bucks.