Indie dev calls out "Mr. Business Suit Guy" after layoffs, new IP cancellation at God of War dev

Indie developer Jonathan Blow, who created Braid, has called out "Mr. Business Suit Guy" after the recent round of layoffs at God of War developer Sony Santa Monica. Specifically, Blow took issue with how publisher executives think about new IPs, like the one reportedly canceled as part of the job cuts at the Sony-owned studio this week.

"Game publishers like to talk about how new IPs are scary and risky and usually not worth it... but this is clearly poor thinking, because every single megablockbuster franchise, that Mr. Business Suit Guy would rather put the money toward, was once a new IP," Blow said on Twitter.

"God of War was once a new IP. Call of Duty was once a new IP. etc," Blow added. "It is so obvious, how does Mr. Business Suit not see this? Maybe next time I meet Mr. Business Suit I will ask him to name an Old IP that was not once a New IP."

Little is known about Sony Santa Monica's new IP, which had been in development since 2010 before its reported cancellation this week. Importantly, we do not know the full situation surrounding the game's shutdown. Sony's official line is that the job cuts were the result of a "cycle of resource realignment against priority growth areas," but the company has not spoken publicly about the affected game.

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch