The legendary game creator Warren Spector has announced his retirement from game development after almost 44 years, his storied career including Deux Ex, Thief and Epic Mickey.
Why now in particular? Well, while he says that “there are three games in particular I’d still like to make”, he also feels that “the game business has changed and it’s just not as much fun for me anymore. Plus there’s a new generation of developers coming up who deserve their time in the sun.”
The highest points from Spector’s career certainly come from the 1990s and early 2000s, and he is seen as the creator of the immersive sim genre. Having joined OtherSide Entertainment in 2016 with the exciting possibility of developing System Shock 3, that project faltered amidst the tricky IP rights and licensing that surrounds the series. Following that, Spector acted as producer on Thick as Thieves, a game which released in an unusual situation earlier this year, and also on Argos: Riders on the Storm, another original multiplayer game with immersive sim elements. Unfortunately, OtherSide made layoffs in June, cancelling Argos and ending support for Thick as Thieves just two months after its pseudo Early Access release.
I can certainly see where Spector is coming from after a trying decade.
Here’s his statement in full:
Let me cut right to the chase. I’m retiring from game development. At least I think so. I’ve been here before and changed my mind but this time I’m pretty sure I mean it.
I’ve had a great career. Wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. But the reasons to retire are simple: I’m a month away from my 44th year as a developer. I’ve had the chance to work on tabletop roleplaying games and boardgames. I’ve worked on more digital games than I can remember — 17 full games, I think, and 9 or so add-on packs. Gratifyingly, some of those games are still being played 15… 20… 30 years later. And most of them have been in a genre that has had influence beyond what I or anyone else expected. I’ve run teams as small as a dozen and as big as 800. I’ve worked for big companies and done startups. I like to think I’ve helped some insanely talented people along in their careers. (That last is the most important.)
With all that behind me and with age and health (my business) catching up with me I’m feeling like I’ve done what I set out to do. It’s time to write some books, do a lot of reading, do some lecturing, maybe do some consulting. (Feel free to get in touch about those last two.) Also there’s a keyboard here just waiting for me to get my piano chops back.
I definitely have mixed feelings about this. I mean there are three games in particular I’d still like to make. (One is very big… one is very small… and one I don’t know how to make which scares me.) But the game business has changed and it’s just not as much fun for me anymore. Plus there’s a new generation of developers coming up who deserve their time in the sun.
To all of you reading this I want you to remember that games are not a solved problem yet — there is, I hope, plenty of experimentation and innovation to come. And to all you young developers out there, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, your job is to make people forget people like me ever existed.
Will I come back? Never say never. But I think it’s time to ride off into the sunset.
Now stop reading and make great games.