Deus Ex creator Warren Spector is retiring from game development

kakacik

Deux ex 1 was an exceptional experience for me. It lacked depth and complexity in some ways that modern games have, but overall feel and venues for character/equipment development fit my gaming style perfectly. Its the only game that I've come to repeatedly, long after its graphic was deemed ancient even with some modding. What a legacy.

rvz

> “Will I come back? Never say never. But I think it’s time to ride off into the sunset. Now stop reading and make great games.” I bet that thanks to AI, he is more likely to come back and make more great games. To Downvoters: After thinking about this in the age of AI, I now think that game developers have no choice but to use AI in developing their games for this reason: The big game studios that use AI will beat the indie studios to market quicker. Let's say he comes back tomorrow and the game studio announces a new game that is to release in two years or so. Do you really think they won't use AI to meet the deadline quicker and avoid any delays? I bet they will. As long as competition exists, there will always be someone else using AI to compete. But of course it is damned if they use AI (no delay). Damned if they don't use AI (and risk delays).

jurgenaut23

Deus Ex 1 was amazing. My best gaming experience ever. I loved every moment of it, exploring the entire city. Thank you Warren!!

esafak

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7495321...

WithinReason

His latest game didn't get good reviews: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3341000/Thick_As_Thieves/...

whywhywhywhy

Kinda sad to me that a lot of the greats from those eras of gaming end up fizzling out on things they shouldn't really be working on and are not to their strengths because of industry ideas of the sorts of games that should be made today. Like Molyneux's last games all being centered around trash exploitative mobile game mechanics. Spector being the progenitor of 2 entire very rich single player genres with Thief and DeusEx it just feels completely the wrong person to be working on some coop online game that got support ended after 2 months. It's just not what a talent like him should be working on and the business mechanics don't align with his strengths. Would have made a lot more sense to be doing a budget IMSIM, there is an audience there on PC for for these sort of games at a visual fidelity level a small team can accomplish rather than trying to make something more mainstream with a reliance on online.

christkv

I’m hoping some small team will do a spiritual successor to deux ex. Somebody told me someone is working on one for thief.

superultra

I work in another sector of the entertainment industry, music. There are exceptions that prove the rule, but I do think there’s something about the quality of a person’s output that changes as they age. Maybe it’s brain elasticity. Maybe it’s that life changes as we age and things like kids or aging parents or health take precedence. Regardless, I wish we had a better structure to more gracefully allow the greats to move into teaching or mentorship rather than expecting them to continually release the next great thing. Sports is a good model due to the physicality, if a little on the ruthless end of the spectrum. Most great athletes peak at 26-32 and the ones that continue can still do amazing things but they move into a different role; captains, coaches, commentators, whatever. Maybe that should apply to games, coding, etc.

jl6

It’s just gone past the halfway point between the date Deus Ex was released, and the date it was set. That puts it on target, because it feels like about half the plot has come true. It was a prototype for a much larger system.

Stalker_Aloy

That's sad to hear. The Immersive Sim genre that he effectively pioneered is so underrated. Without System Shock, Deus Ex, and Thief leading the way, Dishonored and Prey may have never existed.

s_dev

I'm not sure this is sad news but I guess is news or at least some milestone, loved Deus Ex and Warren Spector but he's old, has money, why not retire? Congrats to him on the great career and hopefully he enjoys his retirement.

Apocryphon

His last major work was on Epic Mickey, over a dozen years ago. I figured Spector was de facto retired like many ‘90s game designer icons.

DonHopkins

>"I definitely have mixed feelings about this," he wrote about his retirement. "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." -Warren Spector I hope he figures out how to make it once it finally becomes possible, and comes back! Will Wright said this at the closing his 2005 Spore GDC talk: >A lot of the games I've worked on, I've always had obstacles -- usually trying to convince other people it's a good idea, or it'd be sellable, or whatever. When I look back on this idea, the biggest obstacle I truly had was making myself believe that we could build the game. My own imagination was the biggest bottleneck. Once I truly believed that this game was buildable, it proved to be actually quite easy to con- I mean, to persuade the rest of my staff and the executives and everything that we could do it. >So I'd encourage all of you: if you've got some totally weird idea that is just so far outside the box that you think there's no way that would work -- go back occasionally and revisit those ideas. Because you just never know where they might lead. >-Will Wright, The Future of Content, GDC 2005, 1:00:57 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofA6YWVTURU&t=3657s

classified

Deus Ex will live on in the memory of gamers who were there when it came out. Later generations might not understand just how groundbreaking it was.

dwoldrich

Classy guy, showing how it's done

germandiago

My biggest nostalgia from games industry is point and click adventire games. I have enjoyed playing and finishing Broken Sword 1 & 2 in the phone lately. I had a lot of fun with Timbleweed Park, I hope there was a 2nd part. I also enjoyed lots The excavation of Hob's Barrow and also finished Broken Sword 5. Monkey Island series are great. The CV from Spector is great, btw.

dole

I read the Paranoia, Send in the Clones and numerous other supplements back-to-back as a kid and Warren Spector became a notable name for me. Writing and humor felt a lot like Douglas Adams lite, and made the prospects of living in a underground apocalyptic dystopia really hilarious. As someone mentioned, his CV is stellar; you could almost compare him to Kubrick or maybe Guillermo del Toro at the least.

daneel_w

Thank you for an absolutely fantastic game (most notably the first part) and also thank you to Michiel for an equally fantastic soundtrack.

sebastianconcpt

I've played Deus Ex Human Revolution twice and Mankind Divided once. HR is the best videogame ever, story, art, music. All golden and aging like wine.

tmtvl

Reminds me of the old IGN quote: > "There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.