Warren Spector Leaving Ion Storm

Gamespot has the story that after months in limbo, Warren Spector has left his role as Studio Director at Ion Storm. Despite his disconnection from Ion Storm, he will apparently still have ties to Eidos. From the Article: "Warren has chosen to pursue personal interests outside the company, but he will continue to work for Eidos as an IP consultant."

Comments

Mixed feelings

[LordOfYourPants]

"The "new role" mentioned by Edios' rep will likely be his further advice on the upcoming Tomb Raider game, the development for which he was reportedly overseeing at another Edios-owned studio, Crystal Dynamics. The new Tomb Raider, the seventh in the series, is due out next summer."

I dunno whether that's a good thing or a bad thing as I'm not really a big Tomb Raider fan. I always felt like it cashed in on horny gamers.

Bad: he might be "selling out."

Good: he could make that franchise into something truly great.

For the "who is this guy and why should I care" crowd, Warren Spector has worked on Deus Ex, System Shock, Thief, Ultima Underworld and Ultima VII part II. If that isn't a hell of a gaming resume I don't know what is.

Hopefully he'll move on to great things wherever he goes.

Re:Mixed feelings

[secolactico]

I think he was also involved in the World of Ultima games (Savage Empires and Martian Dreams), which were offshoots of Ultima VI.

Or at least, he was a character in both games, and not exactly a cameo part. He was the avatar's sidekick in Martian Dreams (a great game) and I think he was a villain in Savage Empire (didn't play it).

Great, now I'm nostalgic...

Re:Mixed feelings

[Doctor Cat]

The first game I recall Warren being Producer on at Origin was Ultima VI, which I was head writer on. I believe Jeff Johannigman was producer on Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire and Warren was producer on Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams but I'm not totally sure I'm remembering that right. I'm pretty sure Warren was producer on Ultima VII as well as its spinoff. I think he produced some of the earlier Wing Commander titles too, not as sure on those (I never worked on any of them myself). He was definitely the producer on both of the Ultima Underworld games, 1 and 2. Before coming to Origin and getting into computer games, he worked at Steve Jackson Games, where he was heavily involved in the development of the pen & paper RPG Toon, and he worked at TSR, where he was involved in editing/managing on at least one edition of Advance Dungeons & Dragons. I think he was involved in some RPG project involving Rocky & Bullwinkle too. Before that he got his Masters degree at University of Texas in the Radio/Television/Film department with a thesis on something Warner Brothers cartoons, and he used to write movie reviews for the Austin Chronicle (the cool free weekly newspaper). He used to have a board-gaming marathon at his house every Labor Day, for as long as the Jerry Lewis telethon was on.

This concludes this installment of "more than you wanted to know about Warren Spector". I hope Uncle Warren will do great at his new job. :X) (Does anyone besides me find it an ironic coincidence that Romero and Hall were at Ion Storm, then Warren joined it, and now Romero and Hall are at Midway, and Warren joined that too? Or is there a conspiracy theory to be hatched here? More likely Romero just told his bosses "Warren does great work" or something.)

Was console development the reason?

[TheLoneDanger]

I am wondering if it was mainly Ion Austin's last 2 games' inability to really break through on the consoles (Xbox and to a lesser extent PS2) that really sealed it.

Deus Ex was ported to PS2, and I STILL see copies of it around in the bargain bin. Warren talked about how he had learned lessons on interface design because of the more limited controls of consoles and that they would implement these in future games. Certainly Deus Ex: Invisible War had a much less complicated interface. It also didn't have a tenth of the creativity, functionality or story of the original. And it didn't sell at all on the Xbox. Designing around the limits of the Xbox (32 MB RAM) meant tiny, tiny levels that didn't go over well at all with the PC crowd (the crowd that made Deus Ex a massive hit). Tom Hall was lead designer on DX: IW and he left shortly after it flopped.

Next Thief 3 had hype built up for it. It was designed, like DX: IW for an engine made for the xbox and then ported to PC. I didn't suffer nearly as much as DX: IW did from technical limitations. It got very good reviews. And sold only moderately well. DX: IW and Thief 3 both still did ok on the PC. But it seems obvious to me that Eidos was pushing them to put the games on the consoles (where the big numbers tend to be, as the number of hits in the PC market keep shrinking to a very few that sell very well). I really would have liked to have seen how good DX: IW and Thief 3 might have been if they had designed it for the PC first... maybe this wouldn't have happened and I could've looked forward to a DX 3 that did justice to the original. Sigh...

Re:Was console development the reason?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think in the dev commmunity there's a culture of, especially amongst guys who came up building games for the PC, "we had better get our act together on the consoles or we are going to be irrelevant." It's big business now, not that it wasn't before, but the pressure levels for developers are unprecedented.

It seemed to me that the first Deus Ex on PS2 was more experemental. Of course they wanted it to sell well, but there wasn't the same pressure as there was on DX:IW. I don't think I need to remind everyone that neither that game nor Theif III really set the world on fire. IIRC, didn't Theif ship with some obvious bugs? A serious console dev faux pas.

Back then the folks at Ion Storm gave all these great press releases about "emergent gameplay" and the revolution of GTA:III and how they were going to be a part of that revolution. Well of course I bought into all of that crap, and now I have a really good idea what John Romero's fans felt like. I really wished they would have STFU.

That said, I wish nothing but the best for Harvey and Warren. I hope they get into a development that will let their talents shine. Both of them can, and have, made great games.

OK, so no Harvey Smith, no Warren Spector, why even call it Ion Storm anymore? Am I missing something? Is Doug Church (most underrated game programmer of all time) still over there?

Re:Was console development the reason?

[TheLoneDanger]

OH SHIT! I listed Tom Hall as lead designer on DX: IW, whereas you correctly pointed out that it was Harvey Smith. A terrible brain cramp on my part... But you're right that without Warren Spector and Harvey Smith, Ion Austin is pretty much moot.