Eurogamer has just revealed that Dean ‘Rocket’ Hall will leave Bohemia Interactive and step down as leader of DayZ. As Hall told Eurogamer, while he is ‘really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks‘, he feels that at some point such people should be avoided, otherwise the development of any project could be jeopardized.
“I am a grenade. I have a specific use. I’m really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I’ve always been good at that in my life. Like you say, maybe I’ve got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it. But eventually, that’s the bad person to have. Eventually, you don’t want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I’ll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role.”
Hall continued and said that he wanted to build his own studio, and that he doesn’t feel Bohemia as his home. Hall described the situation as cooking on someone else’s kitchen, something that we can really relate to.
Hall concluded that he won’t leave while the game’s development is at a crucial state. He expends to be staying with Bohemia for this entire year. Still, Hall did not want to pull another ‘Notch retirement’ on PC gamers.
“Yes, I can see people being freaked out about it,” he said, “and I saw what happened with Notch. That’s why it’s better to just address the elephant in the room. It’s also fairer for Bohemia as well, rather than for me to just turn around one day and say ‘see ya’. This isn’t my home. And also it’s a bit different with Notch: he set up his own studio – this isn’t my studio. I can’t – and nor should I – turn around and say and say ‘this is how we do it’. I don’t even know how their country works, their labour laws or anything. And, you know, I miss home.”
What does this mean for DayZ standalone? Well, that’s anyone guess. Some believe that Hall’s decision won’t affect the game as its beta phase is planned for a 2014 launch. On the other hand, others are certain that things will go downhill and that DayZ won’t be ready this year.
Still, kudos to Hall for informing everyone about his decision!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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