Brian Reynolds Comes To His Senses

Zynga's chief game designer, Brian Reynolds, who designed Frontierville for the notoriously exploitative gaming giant, has left Zynga. Finally. Let's hope he lands somewhere where he can put his skills to more than just Hoovering money out of people's pockets.

Hoping he lands in a good spot. Also, would be nice if Soren Johnson took leave of EA Mobile. Why both of them went from 4K Strategy to Frontierville and DA: Legends is beyond me.

Burnt out. They probably saw that they could make the same or more money on a less taxing project.

It might also be that they wanted to step up into a less hands on role...

shoptroll wrote:

Hoping he lands in a good spot. Also, would be nice if Soren Johnson took leave of EA Mobile. Why both of them went from 4K Strategy to Frontierville and DA: Legends is beyond me.

$$$. There was so much hype around social games when he jumped ship and he thought he was going to......paid! The social gaming bubble burst and people are coming home. Soren didn't give any snarky interviews (at least that I read). There was so much hype around social games for a few years and so many people just trashing on traditional games that I hope some games writer takes the piss out of Brian Reynolds a little bit.

Mmm... Alpha Centauri

Has the bubble official burst yet? There's no doubt that social games are a real thing, but the hype was untenable.

Itsatrap wrote:

Has the bubble official burst yet? There's no doubt that social games are a real thing, but the hype was untenable.

I don't know how well the social industry as a whole is doing but Zynga's in a death spiral, several other social studios like BigPoint have had big layoffs lately and the only stories I ever read anymore about Facebook games are ones talking about how they're underperforming. I'm sure there's still a market, just not as big as everyone hyped it to investors.

Itsatrap wrote:

Has the bubble official burst yet? There's no doubt that social games are a real thing, but the hype was untenable.

Burst last year. At one point Zynga had a higher valuation than EA.

Social games aren't going to die. It is just the mega-conglomerates that thought re-skinning gimmicky flash games was a sustainable business are falling hard fast.

shoptroll wrote:

Hoping he lands in a good spot. Also, would be nice if Soren Johnson took leave of EA Mobile. Why both of them went from 4K Strategy to Frontierville and DA: Legends is beyond me.

Soren Johnson has been at Zynga since 2011. It'd be nice if he followed Reynolds and they were somehow able to get the Alpha Centauri rights.

Ulairi wrote:

There was so much hype around social games for a few years and so many people just trashing on traditional games that I hope some games writer takes the piss out of Brian Reynolds a little bit.

WAS?! Still is too much hype around it in my opinion*. Yeah, social, mobile and free to play are all bursting as we speak. The only difference between social and the other two is that investors still believe that they work 100% of the time in all countries and markets.

*When was the last time you saw that written out in its entirety?

Duoae wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

There was so much hype around social games for a few years and so many people just trashing on traditional games that I hope some games writer takes the piss out of Brian Reynolds a little bit.

WAS?! Still is too much hype around it in my opinion*. Yeah, social, mobile and free to play are all bursting as we speak. The only difference between social and the other two is that investors still believe that they work 100% of the time in all countries and markets.

*When was the last time you saw that written out in its entirety?

I think "mobile games" is the next bubble waiting to be burst. But social gaming is not what some people thought it was going to be.

The only Facebook games I play are the ones that don't require my giving them personal information in order to play. That's a *horrible* deal. They've got constant, deep access to your social circle, feeding a huge big data market that they monetize efficiently, and you get a game that costs waaaay more in the long run than it could ever give you back in fun.

In case third time's the charm.... Alpha Centauri.

Looks like Soren Johnson has indeed moved on, taking a gig at Stardock.

Robear wrote:

Looks like Soren Johnson has indeed moved on, taking a gig at Stardock. :-)

After listening to his thoughts on victory conditions and such during his appearance on Jon Shafer's podcast, I'll be interested to see if he can get any of that stuff into a game.

Sounds like he'll be there for two years or so, so you might get to find out.

Robear wrote:

Sounds like he'll be there for two years or so, so you might get to find out.

Two years? In the forum post here Brad announced Soren joining Stardock he only mentioned a few months.

- Jon

We’ve brought on board someone many of you know – Soren Johnson (designer of Civilization IV) who has come to Stardock, at least for awhile, to oversee the design of all our games. Obviously, my boss, Derek (Kael – I run Stardock but Derek runs the game studio and in the game studio I’m the lead programmer so I execute his directives, yes, it’s weird) ..anyway he will still be the one to ultimately approve and massage these designs but we’re grateful for Soren’s help. So please give Soren a warm welcome. I think his impact on our upcoming (think 2014/2015/2016) will be pretty obvious.

Game design isn't usually something that gets fixed in the first few months and then never changed. My feeling is that he'll guide several games through their initial stages of design. But it's all based on my own reading of the press release...

Yeah, Jon Shafer, learn a little bit about game design!

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Yeah, Jon Shafer, learn a little bit about game design!

;)

Haha! Not the first time I've been told that, trust me.

In the original announcement Brad noted that Soren was under contract for a few months and after that he wasn't sure how things would go. I wasn't sure if there'd been any new information since then.

- Jon

Okay, I hadn't seen that clarification.

Was I wrong about the design thing? I've only worked on one game.

(Yes, of course I'm embarrassed, trying to make the best of it here.)

Robear wrote:

Okay, I hadn't seen that clarification.

Was I wrong about the design thing? I've only worked on one game.

(Yes, of course I'm embarrassed, trying to make the best of it here.) :-)

Haha, no worries! I was just wondering if there was something I myself had missed. Soren will probably be pitching in some advice on projects that won't be released for a while, yes. But as a consultant there's also the possibility that he doesn't have much impact. In my experience that kind of a role is rarely deciding specific features like how a game is to be won, but every situation is unique. I suppose we'll find out down the road!

- Jon

Robear wrote:

Looks like Soren Johnson has indeed moved on, taking a gig at Stardock. :-)

Seems like he got out while the getting was good. EA2D / BioWare S.F. is possibly no more.

EDIT: Err, right he had already left EA2D for Zynga. Still, looks like the remainder of the DA:Legends staff are gone :\

Thanks Jon! I'm hoping he's got time to lay out design elements, and that they decide to keep him on for longer. I guess I was assuming too much from the statement about the next few years.