Deus Ex, System Shock, and Thief Developer Legend Warren Spector Announces Retirement

Video game developer legend Warren Spector has announced his retirement from video game development.

The 70-year-old founding father of the immersive sim genre announced his retirement in a post on LinkedIn, saying he felt he had done what he set out to do over the course of his glittering career. He now plans to write a book or two and do some lecturing or consulting.

Spector announced his retirement admitting there are still a few games he’d like to make, but said the video game business had changed and he doesn’t find it fun anymore. He also left the door open to a return to development at some point in the future.

Here’s Spector’s statement in full:

Let me cut right to the chase. I’m retiring from game development. At least I think so. I’ve been here before and changed my mind but this time I’m pretty sure I mean it.

I’ve had a great career. Wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. But the reasons to retire are simple: I’m a month away from my 44th year as a developer. I’ve had the chance to work on tabletop roleplaying games and boardgames. I’ve worked on more digital games than I can remember — 17 full games, I think, and 9 or so add-on packs. Gratifyingly, some of those games are still being played 15… 20… 30 years later. And most of them have been in a genre that has had influence beyond what I or anyone else expected. I’ve run teams as small as a dozen and as big as 800. I’ve worked for big companies and done startups. I like to think I’ve helped some insanely talented people along in their careers. (That last is the most important.)

With all that behind me and with age and health (my business) catching up with me I’m feeling like I’ve done what I set out to do. It’s time to write some books, do a lot of reading, do some lecturing, maybe do some consulting. (Feel free to get in touch about those last two.) Also there’s a keyboard here just waiting for me to get my piano chops back.

I definitely have mixed feelings about this. 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.) But the game business has changed and it’s just not as much fun for me anymore. Plus there’s a new generation of developers coming up who deserve their time in the sun.

To all of you reading this I want you to remember that games are not a solved problem yet — there is, I hope, plenty of experimentation and innovation to come. And to all you young developers out there, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, your job is to make people forget people like me ever existed.

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.

While Spector is perhaps best known for his work on Deus Ex and Thief at Ion Storm, he also founded Junction Point Studios, developer of Disney’s Epic Mickey games. Spector retires as chief creative officer of OtherSide Entertainment, developer of a spiritual successor to Looking Glass’s Ultima Underworld series called Underworld Ascendant. Spector’s latest game, Thick as Thieves, failed to find an audience, and OtherSide suffered a round of layoffs.

Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagic.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

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