Warren Spector, the veteran video game developer that brought us Deus Ex, System Shock and Thief, has announced that he’s retiring from game development – this time for good.
Spector announced his retirement in a long post on LinkedIn. “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,” he writes.
He goes on to explain how he’s worked as a game developer for 43 years, having delivered 17 full games in his career and a further nine add-on packs. “I’ve run teams as small as a dozen and as big as 800. I’ve worked for big companies and done startups,” Spector says. “I like to think I’ve helped some insanely talented people along in their careers. (That last is the most important.)”
Spector started out his career working at Steve Jackson Games, running the games division by coming up with rules for board games. He also edited the Space Gamer and Fantasy Gamer magazines at the same time.
Before long, he broke into video game development, spending four years as an executive producer at Electronic Arts and Origin Systems. It was there that Spector first became a household name, working on the original System Shock – widely considered to be the first game in the immersive sim genre.
He took his expertise on to start many other franchises that are still widely played today. He had a hand in creating the original Thief in 1998, as well as Deus Ex in 2000. Without those titles, we wouldn’t have games like Dishonored and Bioshock, which cite the work of Spector as much of their inspiration.
As for why Spector is choosing now to quit game development for good, he cites a few reasons – his age and his health being two of them, although he’d prefer to keep the latter more private. Primarily, he feels like he’s ‘done what he 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,” he says regarding what he thinks his life in retirement might look like.
Sadly, Spector does tease in his retirement post that he does have a few more ideas for games that he might never get to make. “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.”
He does say “never say never” in terms of whether he’ll ever come back to the job. But for now, he says it’s “time to ride off into the sunset”.
By Joshua Boyles
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