David Jaffe leaves Eat Sleep Play; studio shifts focus to mobile games [Update]

God of War and Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe will leave Eat Sleep Play, a studio he co-founded, to pursue casual game development, a Salt Lake Tribune report has revealed.

“He’s got some projects that he’s excited about. So we’re kind of going down two separate paths,” Eat Sleep Play co-founder Scott Campbell said.

Eat Sleep Play laid off eight workers as it finished Twisted Metal, and, similar to Jaffe, will transition from producing console titles to mobile games.

“It’s a platform that is in our pockets almost 24/7. It’s kind of the size and types of games we’re playing,” said Campbell. “You can certainly reach a lot more people. That’s pretty exciting for us.”

Eat Sleep Play’s latest release, Twisted Metal, will hit retailers on February 14 for PlayStation 3.

Update: From David Jaffe’s Twitter comes new details (for reading purposes, we’ve wrote out some of what Jaffe’s written as acronyms).

“I have zero plans to make games like Farmville and Angry Birds. I never said what I was doing post Twisted Metal (and I’m still on Twisted Metal along with Eat Sleep Play for the next months as we launch it and balance it in real time and make sure it’s a perfect game and continue to support it),” said Jaffe (1, 2, 3). “At the same time I will be opening a game studio here in San Diego because I really miss internal game development. Happy to share more details later.”

He added (1, 2): “But if I may clear this up: I was not laid off. I co-own the company. There were a few lay offs and they were very painful to do for all involved. I’m leaving because – again – games are just getting [too] big to direct from 300 miles away [and] I miss the day [to] day of working direct [with] team.”