God of War and Twisted Metal director, David Jaffe, is one of the most outspoken members of the videogame industry. He almost always voices his opinion on a recent issues affecting the development community. Sporadically, he has been teasing his newest game, but has not officially unveiled it. Taking a break from teasing gamers, Jaffe spoke about the PlayStation Network’s game sharing policy, which allows a downloaded game to be shared with 4 other accounts. Jaffe’s comments are certainly a read, and offer a perspective not coming from a gamer, but rather a developer, who loses sales due to this policy.
Posting on his Twitter account just yesterday, Jaffe had this to say about the policy:
“@zKAPOWz No, but I think game sharing on PSN is utter horse shit. Why is it ok to buy a game and give it to 2-5 peeps 4 free? Insane!”
Jaffe went on to say:
Of COURSE this is a great deal for gamers.But a shit deal for game makers.If I were ONLY a gamer then sure, I’d LOVE IT.It’s a great deal!
Jaffe’s perspective certainly puts things into place. By sharing a PSN game, the developer of the game potentially loses four sales. David Jaffe probably knows this best, as he released Calling all Cars! to the PSN Store, where he potentially lost a significant amount of sales. Should Sony continue to allow this practice? Or should they align themselves with the game developers and disallow it? Post your responses in the comments section below.
