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."

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

[Rallion]

I wouldn't miss him if he were gone. He's already sold out. There is no more selling. He's just about as sold as can be.

Re:Mixed feelings

[Needanewnick]

I never liked any of those games.
Guess his kind of game just doesn't sit well with some.

Re:Mixed feelings

[illumina+us]

While those games make a great resume you failed to mention his work on Deus Ex: Invisible War and Theif III. Those games were less than on par with their predicesors and dissapointed the gaming community as a whole. While Deus Ex remains my favorite game of all time, Deus Ex: Invisible War is a complete and utter pile of crap complete with really shiny everything (this means the box, the CD, the characters, and everything in the game. Yes, even the supposed matte wooden chairs are shiny.)

Re:Mixed feelings

[KDR_11k]

His influence on DEIW was very limited, there was this (in)famous incident with the unified ammo where Spector was against it but the team overruled him. So Thief 3 and IW could actually have been ruined by the lack of Warren Spector.

Re:Mixed feelings

[Rico_Suave]

Thief: DS was a disappointment? That's news to me. Other than the mid-level loading, I've heard nothing but praise for it. And Deus Ex: IW was enjoyable as well, as long as you weren't comparing it to the original (which is inevitable, but it *is* a good game in it's own right, if not up to the lofty standard set by the first game)

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 definitel

Bioshock

[Gamelore]

So it's no longer impossible for him to work for Irrational Games? *dreams*

Re:Bioshock

[Lisandro]

One can only hope. I've been dreaming about System Shock 3 the second i finished the 3.

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 e

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.

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.

Sure, but it takes different people in different ways.

For a contrasting example, look at Bethesda. They designed Morrowind for the PC, and then ported it to XBox. Both versions were bestsellers - t

Deus Ex and the Xbox

[Tersevs]

First a minor correction. The XBox have 64 Mb of RAM. I dont know why there isnt more than that, it seems like an unneccesary limitation.

Maybe Deus Ex 1 has bigger levels, but they were cut up in smaller sections (sometime poorly divided too) that took forever to load.
I also thought that Deus Ex ran really slow on the PS2. The textures and buildings was abysmal and had virtually no eye-candy. (Although some objects in the game looked nice). Even so the framrate was terrible at times. I felt that the engine

Someone help me here...

[Lisandro]

How much involvement had Warren Spector in the final form of "Deus Ex: Invisible war"? I remember seeing early screenshots for the game, and they were so different (and better) than the final product that i wanna cry. It felt to me that the DX:IW team was forced into "dumbing down" the game to make it appealing to console gamers.

In any case, i wish him the best in his new endeavors. Not too long ago having Warren involved in a game was pretty much a guarantee it would turn out to be great.

The rumors are true..

[Taulin]

warren leaving has been floating around the rumor bin for a while. I am suprised he didn't leave earlier. I thought Theif 3 was a pretty cool game with incredible atmosphere and playability. I played the demo of DEIW, and also thought it was crap. The people just seemed too big and bulky. Good luck to Warren, and I hope he finds his way again.

Well . . .

[dorlthed]

Looks like they'll never make a good game again . . .