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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Gordon Walton Leaves Bioware
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Industry veteran, Gordon Walton, has left Bioware-Austin. Walton was formerly the vice president and co-general manager of the studio that is working on Star Wars: The Old Republic. According to reports, Walton is now working for social games developer Playdom as an executive producer.
Although Walton leaves the studio with its major project, MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, still in progress, BioWare wishes him well and in a statement to Gamasutra emphasized its "appreciation... for helping bring the game to the phenomenal state it is in today."
According to the statement, BioWare's Rich Vogel remains BioWare Austin's executive producer and VP of production, and Star Wars: The Old Republic remains under the oversight of project general manager Greg Zeschuk and BioWare group general manager Ray Muzyka.
Source: Gamasutra.
Comments
Probably not a good sign.
Yeah... this does not sit right with me.
My theme song.
Why is that always the first thing someone says? This guy is known to move around in the industry, he doesn't stay in one place for too long. What this article doesn't say is that it's also being reported that he's following his good friend Raph Koster into the social gaming platform, it has nothing to do with the state of The old Republic. People leave companies all the time to pursue different opportunities, especially if they get paid as much or more to work with a good friend on something new.
All I can do is scratch my head. I clicked on the playdom site to see whats up with it, and all I could do was choke. It took me a couple of minutes to clean up all the mountain dew I was drinking on.
Honestly he left bioware to go to that. You got to ask why?
So, he switched from one work to another. I wouldn't put any greater meaning to it, probably he just got better salary from Playdom.
It is not just about sallary in that business. Leaving the "ship" that close to the release of what is hyped to be the premium MMORPG product and the next wow killer, makes me wonder if something is not right onboard.
Stress factor certainly has to weighed in as well with what he's moving to.
I derive my strength from passion. Do you feel that? That is what seperates you and I, Jedi!
Why is there a company called Playdom? I don't like to be played, I never did anything to these guys!;)
Still, it's not the most assuring sign when VP & Co-General Manager of a studio walks out only months before a title's release...
No longer using Xshite. Here's my Wakoopa:
I think George Takei says it best, "Oh my."
Stop crying in my beer.
Everything isn't always doom and gloom folks. For all we know, he decided to move on for personal reasons... maybe he wanted to move his family to (wherever Playdom is located)... geesh, why does everyone always jump to the most negative possible conclusion?!
^this
The question is not why (though most likely more a career/family decision), but the fact the act has no hope of looking good from the outside looking in. Granted, I doubt any bad PR will take too much out of the hype built up for the game...I wish him well as I'm sure he's helped with other Bioware titles in the past, which I love dearly.
If you follow the links at Playdom to look for a job, you find out they're part of Disney Interactive. Plus, Walton is following his friend Raph Koster into social gaming.
I don't think this is a sign of doom and gloom. It's just someone taking an opportunity that they find interesting, and with a friend they've worked with before.
lol not like VPs do anything at work anyways
Exactly. I really wouldn't worry about it.
To be fair, in large projects, there comes a point where even major players in development have done their job and can move on. And frankly it isn't uncommon for such players to move onto new gigs even before a launch.
If anything worries me, it is the inability of Bioware/EA to manage PR better.
Comstrike
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Founder, Leader, www.SonsOfNumenor.com LOTRO - SW.ToR (Yes, we are recruiting)
Employee in "I got a new job offer and decided to take it" shocker!..
Internet in over-reacting hyperbole scandal.
Really, this is news?
[mod edit]
People on this this site are such drama queens. A guy moves onto greenier pastors and automatically Bioware is falling apart?
With such logic, every person who leaves a job leaves his company in ruins. How do the Walmarts of the world survive such an on-slaught of employee walk outs.
Stop pulling something positive out of everything will you? This is disaster news and has a huge impact on Bioware.
Oy. Guys, people leave jobs all the time. Frankly, I loath mine and would leave it in a second if I got a job that would pay better just to get away from the jerks I work with and my incompetent worthless managers.
Yeah it is all fine persuing new jobs. Except MMOs are not just another product that you finish and move on. Or they are and it is a part of what's wrong with the genre.
A good point. I wonder if that's exactly the same rationale he used. What would that say about Bioware?
It amazes me, and it's why I haven't commented about it for a few days, being mystified, that Bioware could make such an enormously ignorant statement at Dice about Blizzard's WoW being the MMO that set the standards, and Bioware is not going to part with those standards, that it's no wonder they would lose someone as important as this. Did their statement insult this man's work so much that he chose somewhere else to go to work, or has there been strife within for a long time because the game is, indeed, a WoW clone with voice.
Not having played in the Beta, and not likely to, I cannot say for certain. What I can say is the ignorance and stupidity put into their statement has taken someone who was a very hardcore player waiting for THEIR game, specifically, and turned me entirely against even looking at their web site for updates, anymore. They come out first and say they will need 500,000 people to make the game viable, and then they come out later and make a statement about not breaking with the stupidity that is Blizzard's design in a game; how many people did they lose by making such a thought-less statement?
Even I am keen to admit when I saw the very first commercial for World of Warcraft I was all ears, and I sacrificed someone else's Christmas present to pick it up for myself that year, my very first MMO -do not call it an RPG, because it is NOT- and I played it for 30 months. Once I explored the last square centimeter of available terrain, and right before Burning Crusade came out, I logged off for the last time and haven't ever looked back. However, in the past 7 years since its advent, there have been so many clones of that game that have come out, that even I, not now an avid MMO player, am sick of seeing them. For Bioware to announce, now, that they are following in Blizzard's footsteps sickens me, as though I have been molested and left for dead.
Bioware got Lance Henriksen to do the voice of Master Gnost Dural for their history series. The videos I've seen and the care I thought was being taken with the game, the magnificent vistas shown in screenshots and concept art, the differences and extensions in fighting action, were all enticing. The fact that Bioware has kept their public in the loop from day one with a magnificent campaign to let us know what's actually IN the game, has been intoxicating. Now, to find out that the developers are just "going with what works" in the broken MMO industry... disappointment is not a strong enough word by a full 1/100th.
Now, to hear that one of their top guys is taking a powder while the gettin's good... will we ever see something better than the same puke-trash-bile we've had over the past decade?
You guys forget (and this was documented million times) game developers get paid large bonuses when the game ships. Actually most of their real earnings comes from this bonuses.
So, leaving the ship , just before the game ships. Few months befeore you get the bonus.
That makes no sense
He was most likely asked to leave. And why ?
Well , surely not becase his performance is living up to expectations.
What it means to the game ... nothing good i recon
Well there may of been a change in Bioware but no changes at all in these forums...same people automatically twisting the news to the most nagative and doomfilled scenario and the same people trying to pass it off as completely inconsequential to the game lol.
We'll probably never know why he left whether it was for personal reasons,forced upon him or simply he wanted a change whatever...I wish him well in his new endevours.