Deus Ex creator Warren Spector is retiring from game development

118 pointsposted 2 days ago
by danbolt
(videogameschronicle.com)

84 Comments

whywhywhywhy

2 days ago

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.

mickeyp

2 days ago

Or maybe, just maybe, these guys made great games because they were surrounded by great people. That QA guy who gave key insights into how tedious certain game mechanics were; the "bad executive" they all hated who reined in their unreachable goals; that one developer who applied his good game design senses despite not being a designated designer.

I find the notion of auteur "game developers" somewhat puzzling. I say that as someone who played, and still play, these games when they came out. Most of these guys haven't made great games in a long, long while. Obsidian's only decent game in a long while is Pentiment, and that for all intents was a passion project.

OnionBlender

2 days ago

Spector has acknowledged that. Reminds me of this funny opening line.

> "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.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/11/12/deus-ex-2

cholantesh

a day ago

Especially funny because by his own admission, Spector wasn't even a major contributor to the development of Thief.

nsavage

2 days ago

The other factor that might be in play is that the people who made great games got lucky and didn't really know exactly what made their games so good and aren't able to recapture the magic.

meheleventyone

2 days ago

It's a combination of all those things really. There's also a lot of people in commercial game development that get stuck in their thesis of success when the market has moved on.

In particular I'd say right now it's really hard to look at any given game that has commerical potential and spot the winners across any size category. There is a glut of supply that tends to exentuate the hit driven nature of making games as gamers latch onto the next viral success whilst at the same time making it hard to have multiple hits. Back in the day competition was less and money could buy a scope and technology advantage. Both of which are ideas that no longer really apply.

bigbuppo

a day ago

And then you have Jeff Vogel, who has spent roughly 2/3 of his career literally remaking the games he first released 30 years ago. And I've literally bought them all.

meheleventyone

a day ago

Even that might be subject to shifting market trends as his audience ages eventually but it's definitely been a nice sticky niche.

MisterTea

a day ago

It certainly is synergistic though I also think it has to do with being at the right place at the right time. New technology, new industry, new ideas - pure excitement for all involved.

I feel as the industry ages out the "fresh new excitement cutting edge" environment you thrived in is now mainstream. It's procedural and boring so you feel forced to churn out another "cutting edge" mainstream thing. You burn out trying to blend in with the furniture.

Perhaps if you keep finding new cutting edge things to do you can stay on top but most people are ensnared by their zeitgeist.

fasterik

a day ago

What you're describing is the inability to maintain quality over a career, which is a separate issue from whether auteurs exist. Often it's because fame and success remove the constraints that were forcing the work to be tight and focused. I don't think the idea of a game auteur is any less real than that of a film auteur. Both are made by large teams, but the best works are often a single person's vision.

watwut

a day ago

I think it is other way round. Some people are able to maintain quality over a career and that proves they are the 'auteurs' of those things.

And some other people cant reproduce the former success, which makes it much more likely the reasons for success were well beyond their control.

fasterik

a day ago

An auteur is just the "author", the primary creative force behind a project. Sustained success is orthogonal to that and depends on the person. Francis Ford Coppola didn't make anything of note after the 1970s, but he was still the auteur behind The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.

uejfiweun

2 days ago

Or maybe, just maybe, it's both. As with basically all things like this in life. Obviously, you need a great leader, and you need a great team.

Like look at Hidetaka Miyazaki's work on Demon's Souls and then go and tell me that the leader doesn't matter.

W3cUYxYwmXb5c

a day ago

yeah, it's meaningful when you can tell a particular designer's touch on a game

m_mueller

a day ago

exhibit B: Chris Roberts. pretty sure this guy needs a studio counterpart that gives him limits, or else nothing ever gets actually finished.

DonHopkins

2 days ago

The intern who didn't know it was impossible so did it anyway.

coffeebeqn

2 days ago

Seems like that’s more the norm than not. You have a few great games in you and then you’re kind of out of ideas or the unique thing you brought gets diffused into the genre. Romero was one of the first ones to go through that. Has anyone other the Miyamoto and Miyazaki and Sid Meier(?) been able to keep the quality up? And they’re probably more like managers of designers at this point

malfist

2 days ago

Has sid meier kept up the quality? Last I heard the new civilization game is petty crap and shipped unfinished in favor of dlc for basic game play

mickeyp

2 days ago

Meier's about as connected to most of these things as Tony the tiger is to the actual production of cornflakes.

ben_w

a day ago

That's been par for the course on the series for some time now.

Not sure when exactly, I assume since physical media became less important, but it's been recommended for at least V and VI, not just VII to skip the x.0 releases, wait for some updates.

bigstrat2003

a day ago

No, 7 is way worse than any Civ game has ever been, and has a much worse reception than any Civ game has ever had. There are always a vocal contingent of users who are unhappy with the new Civ on release, but it's never been almost everyone before (as it is with Civ 7). Firaxis really screwed this one up.

jayd16

2 days ago

Kojima games have only gotten more Kojima.

whywhywhywhy

a day ago

Yoko Taro also

frmersdog

a day ago

If you've been paying attention this past week, you'll know that Tetsuya Nomura isn't just making new games, he's making his old ones, too (to raucous hype).

EDIT: I'll add Daisuke Ishiwatari and Fumito Ueda. It's hard to think of someone in the West, though. A lot of them got run out. Amy Hennig's an infamous case.

W3cUYxYwmXb5c

a day ago

Tim Schafer has had a pretty good run over his career

tayo42

a day ago

Music is like that too. Bands have one and maybe a follow up album that gets them popular then everything usually doesn't compare.

user

a day ago

[deleted]

vinkelhake

a day ago

I don't think Molyneux's issue ever was due to industry pressure. The guy made some great games back in the day, but as long as he has been in the spotlight he has been known for overpromising and underdelivering.

Don't get me wrong, a game like Fable was pretty good, but it was nowhere near what he was effectively selling back when it was known as Project Ego.

That Molyneux chose to make a mindless clicker as his first game with 22cans really can't be blamed on anything or anyone other than Peter himself.

epolanski

a day ago

Today's development is either pay huge money for blockbusters, or go budget and make "lovely" games as indie developers.

Hard to get the mid ground, they rarely recoup the costs.

ramesh31

2 days ago

>"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."

I'm sure his bank account disagrees. All games are, ultimately, commercial ventures with the express purpose of making money. It's why they are so hard to classify as "art". There are a select few auteur driven passion projects that can transcend this now and again, but they are generally extreme outliers among even their creator's careers, let alone the industry as a whole.

collinmcnulty

2 days ago

Artists have to eat, it doesn’t make them not artists. Games are not hard to classify as art. You may not like the art or think a lot of it’s not very good, but they are art, because art is not the exclusive domain of “auteur driven passion projects”.

DSMan195276

2 days ago

That seems a bit silly considering how many of the most famous paintings and artworks are/were commissions. Do you disqualify anything that was made for monetary reasons?

Shorel

2 days ago

Cyberpunk 2077 creators bank account is bigger, and arguably that game is he true spiritual successor of Deus Ex.

pipes

10 hours ago

I haven't played Cyberpunk, I loved the original Deus ex. I think cyberpunk would probably too much for me to try and play these days, due to no free time. Is it open world, so unlike Deus ex single contained levels?

jurgenaut23

2 days ago

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

fzeindl

2 days ago

I think a big part also was the superb, moody soundtrack.

otekengineering

2 days ago

Spector leaving EA to join Romero and make Deus Ex was the platinum lining of EA buying Origin and enshittifying Ultima.

Deus Ex is Ultima X, it picked up and relit the torch that Ultima IX dropped in a puddle.

zabzonk

a day ago

> exploring the entire city

there were many sites, not just one city

s_dev

2 days ago

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.

jl6

2 days ago

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

2 days ago

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.

germandiago

a day ago

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.

garageg

a day ago

Thimbleweed Park 2 got announced just recently, due in 2028!

WorldMaker

a day ago

Also a fascinating tale on game economics in 2026. Thimbleweed Park 1 was half or so financed with a Kickstarter and some "passion" work from its staff (underpaid versus time commitments). Thimbleweed Park 2 is apparently getting its budget from some mysterious benefactor, some unnamed multi-millionaire with the spare cash to spend.

It's a weird world to see that sort of rich patronage model returning. It also doesn't seem sustainable for that many games we want to play to come from just random multi-millionaires and billionaires desiring that videogames are their favorite "philanthropy".

superultra

2 days ago

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.

catgary

2 days ago

Spector is 70 years old, that’s a pretty reasonable age for retirement?

danbolt

a day ago

Spector was in his mid-forties when Deus Ex was released, System Shock a few years before that.

I wonder if he’s an exception that proves the rule like you mention, or if his experiences in his youth working on tabletop games contributed to his design sensibilities in the 90s.

WithinReason

2 days ago

His latest game didn't get good reviews:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3341000/Thick_As_Thieves/...

coffeebeqn

2 days ago

I was following the development and it sounded like they ran out of money and had to release something. And was followed almost immediately by a 99% layoff.

__david__

12 hours ago

I liked it, but it felt like 1/10th of a game. On the other hand they only charged about 1/10th of a game ($5). I played it for about 10 hours so I feel like I easily got my monies worth.

tmtvl

a day ago

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.

dole

a day ago

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.

kakacik

2 days ago

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.

xnorswap

2 days ago

I loved the aesthetic of Deus Ex, but the Deus Ex in my head was always far better than the one in reality, and so I've deliberately never re-visited it, to keep that memory of a treasure.

Some games just impact me in a way that others don't, and I rarely go back to games for that reason. Another example is that I've probably spent longer thinking about Thomas Was Alone than I actually spent playing it, it's a very short game that had a tremendous impact on me.

Deus Ex was the right game at just the right time, and somehow the sequels never recaptured that magic. For me, a large part of that was precisely the promise the game had, even if upon technical breakdown it didn't really deliver on those promises. The idea that you were affecting and interacting with the world. The idea that you had a full gamut of options of how to achieve a mission. These were promises that weren't well kept, but they kept the imagination alive.

LollipopYakuza

2 days ago

> but the Deus Ex in my head was always far better than the one in reality

I feel like it's actually a sign of a good game. A masterpiece that relies on my imagination just hits different.

jurgenaut23

2 days ago

I wonder what made it so magic.

danbolt

2 days ago

Part of me always felt the wacky setting helped with the player’s sense of anticipation.

Or, you’re always learning new things and encountering new elements, be it plot, interactions, or simply exploring. The replayability ends up feeling quite arcade-y too, trying for a particular outcome.

aleph_minus_one

2 days ago

> I wonder what made it so magic.

The conspiracy theories. :-)

user

a day ago

[deleted]

NoboruWataya

2 days ago

> The idea that you were affecting and interacting with the world. The idea that you had a full gamut of options of how to achieve a mission. These were promises that weren't well kept, but they kept the imagination alive.

Yes, looking back at the game in hindsight - having since played games like Morrowind - Deus Ex seems relatively linear in comparison, but at the time it felt completely different to any FPS I had played before.

jurgenaut23

2 days ago

Indeed, I played the sequels, and although they were great, they never quite captured the magic of Deus Ex 1.

nonamesleft

2 days ago

Also the speedruns for that game contain absolutely hilarious mechanics, like throwing the gas grenade to get the door opened faster at UNATCO HQ.

farlight

2 days ago

The only game hack I've ever discovered by myself (by being too cowardly to proceed through the main route when I was little, wasting time instead on the unatco base, and mindlessly throwing grenades around).

It doesn't work anymore in modern mods I've played through; they've patched it.

Trasmatta

2 days ago

> It lacked depth and complexity in some ways that modern games have

I would argue it has way more depth and complexity than the majority of modern games. There were so many systems that interacted in interesting ways, and so much player freedom that the devs actually accounted for. Just endless stories of "I tried this bizarre thing that I thought nobody would think of, and the devs actually wrote unique dialogue for this situation".

It's also a bit of a mess and cobbled together, but in a beautiful way.

sebastianconcpt

a day ago

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

a day ago

Isn't Human Revolution that game where you're being a super stealthy ghost, making your way through an entire level undetected only to have a cutscene play and drop you off into a boss fight? That doesn't sound much like the 'best video game ever' if you ask me.

TheJCDenton

a day ago

Each time someone mention Deus Ex, someone reinstall it. Again. Thanks !

dwoldrich

a day ago

Classy guy, showing how it's done

classified

2 days ago

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.

gukov

a day ago

Somehow it was more immersive and engaging than any recent AAA game.

Apocryphon

2 days ago

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.

daneel_w

a day ago

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

christkv

2 days ago

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

ac

2 days ago

Core Decay is a spiritual successor to the Deus Ex series. It’s a very small team indeed working on it right now. Just one person working on it now, IIRC.

DonHopkins

2 days ago

>"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

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

rvz

2 days ago

> “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).

add-sub-mul-div

a day ago

Yes, some companies will have "no choice" but to use AI for creative work in the same way that McDonald's has no choice but to use unspeakable parts of the animal to make their mcnuggets.