Studio meltdown

As most people who might be reading this blog already know, Sara and I left San Diego because, among other things, the video game studio where I was working was on the brink of meltdown. The reasons for this are multiple, including some pretty high level corporate aggression between Sony and EA Games, but mostly the reasons our studio was falling apart can be attributed to one person, whom I won't name because Sony made it pretty clear that they could sue me to pieces if I ever spoke ill of them after leaving. What I can say is that I and my fellow producers had been trying to warn this person for some time that if things didn't change, and quickly, there wouldn't be a studio left. Tried, that is, without much success.

So it fills me with mixed emotions to hear that my former workplace has indeed fallen into the problems so many of us foresaw many months ago. People are leaving, some voluntary, some not. I really hoped they would find a way to pull themselves out of the fire, but I also knew there wasn't much chance of it.

I'm reminded of a posting my good friend Mark made during his last days at his previous gig (scroll down on the above link to the November 11, 2004 entry). I now think I understand how he felt. Even though it's been over a month since I left my old company, and in the meantime I've moved to another city, another country, and another continent, as well as having lived at three different addresses since arriving here, part of my heart is still with that project and particularly with the really kick-ass bunch of people that were working on it. And it breaks my heart to know that despite our best efforts, the project is probably going to fail.

But the up side to things is that, as is always the way with talented and determined people, out of the ashes of that ruin a number of bright and fiery phoenixes are already rising. I hope to be able to write more about them in the future, but for now, I wish all my old colleagues (except one) the very best of luck.