One of the more high-profile names in game development in recent years has been Guillermo del Toro. First, he was developing a survival horror game with THQ called Insane. Then, THQ went bankrupt. So, he switched over to make the high-profile Silent Hills for Konami, only to discover Konami was more interested in turning real life into a paranoid thriller. So, third time’s the charm, right?
… If I join another video game, World War III will start.
Apparently not, at least if del Toro is being honest with ShackNews. After two admittedly terrible experiences and some world record bad luck, del Toro is simply done with the entire medium.
I was in an apprenticeship. I learned a lot from Kojima-san, of course, and I learned a lot from my experience at THQ. It changed the way I see narrative. We put two years of work in THQ. It was insane… I know some of the tricks, or the stuff that I wanted to learn, I learned.
Then he explains he’s worried he’ll join a developer and somebody’s house will explode. He will happily let developers make games out of his movies, he just has decided to step away from the process.
Instability is simply a reality of life in the video game industry. Ugly mass layoffs are commonplace, successful developers can be destroyed when a publisher decides to close them in a fit of pique, and the entire industry might have to cede pride of place to mobile development. But it really says something when a guy who regularly sees multimillion productions get delayed for years finds it too ridiculous to continue.
(via ShackNews)