RIP Junction Point... and... maybe...?

Quarto

Unknown Enemy
So, the news just broke that Disney is shutting down Junction Point. Warren Spector is out of a job, and says he doesn't yet know what will come next

It's certainly always sad when that happens, although I suppose it was that time - he has joked in the past that after about seven years at a company, he gets an itch to move on. In this case, it was eight years, so he must really have been itching in the end!

What I really find myself wondering, though, is whether we'll end up seeing Warren Spector working together with Chris Roberts again. Granted, I'm not sure what that would accomplish exactly - Warren Spector was never that hugely involved in the Wing Commander series, and his ideas were always fantastic enough that he simply deserves to be making his own games instead of playing second fiddle on someone else's project.

And yet, I can't help hoping that - well, something - will happen. That somehow, all those Origin guys will end up - if not working at the same company, at least cooperating to help each other out in their projects.
 
Warren actually produced the original Wing Commander and was very involved in getting that game out... but no, you won't be seeing him working with Chris Roberts. We are looking at some Junction Point folks for a physics programmer job, though!

The rumor in Austin is that Warren has a social gaming project in the works, so more following the same path as Richard Garriott. What I'm really eager to find out is how serious he was about all the Disney stuff... did he really love the IP as much as he's insisted all this time, or are we going to be hearing a different tune in six months now that they've parted ways?
 
Gosh darn it, not a social gaming project :(.

I think, when it comes to Disney, he may genuinely love the IP as much as he's insisted. It seems reasonable, because Disney in general had a much bigger impact on his generation than on ours. However, I've heard from a few people that Disney on the inside is a disturbingly corporate place (a friend whose company ported several Disney games to other platforms put it very bluntly: "Mickey Mouse is a fascist"). It may well be that the reason Warren Spector kept on repeating how much he loves the IP is specifically because it game him something positive to focus on, and thus to avoid potentially inconvenient questions about what it's really like working for Disney.

On that latter aspect, we may well hear a different tune six months on... but then again, it is Warren Spector we're talking about. I've never seen him make any public statements about why he got fed up with EA. Or about how things worked out at ION Storm. He's not the kind who talks about past issues to justify what he's doing now. Privately, I'm sure he'd be willing to tell all kinds of tales, but in public...?
 
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