Journey studio losing key staffers – Report

Co-founder Kellee Santiago leaves Thatgamecompany after six years, others also believed to be on their way out as "big changes" in the works.

 

Journey, Flower, and Flow studio Thatgamecompany is embarking on a new adventure without co-founder and president Kellee Santiago and possibly other important personnel, according to a Gamasutra report.

The site says "big changes" are in the works at the Santa Monica, California-based developer. Further details were not offered.

Santiago co-founded Thatgamecompany six years ago with creative director Jenova Chen, whom she worked with at the University of Southern California on the experimental game Cloud. She did not elaborate further on her colleagues' prospective plans but indicated that announcements were "likely."

Explaining her own departure from Thatgamecompany, Santiago said, "So much of my work at Thatgamecompany was really supporting Jenova's visions for the types of games he wanted to make, and I felt like I have done everything I needed to do there."

Santiago said her departure from the studio was amicable. She did not elaborate on where she is headed, saying only that she wants to press forward.

"My hope is that I can take what I've learned and use it to support more teams, more projects£and really, hopefully, help in accelerating the growth of video games as a medium," she says

In a company statement, Chen said, "After the hard struggle behind Flow, Flower and Journey, we've finally reached our goal. Awaiting at the mountaintop are new enlightenments and new sets of milestones for our life."

There have been some hints about what's next for Thatgamecompany. A studio job listing spotted last month indicates the studio is building a "full-scale online service," which will accommodate hundreds of thousands of users.

The studio's latest game, Journey, shipped earlier this month for the PlayStation 3 to rapt reviews.

[ Watch Video ]

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot


"Journey studio losing key staffers - Report" was posted by Eddie Makuch on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:04:50 -0700
Filed under: Video Games

Top

No Comments »

Leave a Reply




Back to Top