Other staff could depart from Journey developer, report claims
A key executive at Journey developer Thatgamecompany has resigned, with more staff expected to leave the group.
Kellee Santiago, who co-founded the California studio in 2006 along with Jenova Chen, told Gamasutra that her departure was amicable.
No explanation was offered regarding the possible resignation of other studio staff.
"After doing three games, I think it was a really great opportunity for all of us to look at what we've learned and what I've taken from that experience, and go forth and take it into new arenas," she said.
"Much of my work at Thatgamecompany was really supporting Chen's visions for the types of games he wanted to make, and I felt like I have done everything I needed to do there, and that he's in a great place now to go on and continue with some of the other people at Thatgamecompany, to take that to a whole new height."
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In a statement issued by Thatgamecompany, the studio said it wished Santiago well and hoped “our paths may cross again".
Large team + 3 years + arty game + no Steam version = fail.
It's 4 art games - 1 of which got their name out there (Cloud), another that got ported to PSP and PSN and became highly successful because of it (fl0w), a beautiful and again successful PS3 game (Flower), and another beautiful and highly successful exploration game (Journey).
Thatgamecompany are one of the more famous independent studios and have been very successful, considering the supposedly-niche audience they target with their games. You don't need a Steam release to have a successful game (considering their main audience is PS3 owners with their recent games, hurr).
They are not on Steam because they signed a 4 game exclusive deal with Sony right after graduating from USC. BTW, this was just published today on Gamasutra: "Thatgamecompany's Journey, released for PlayStation 3 earlier this month, is now the fastest selling game ever on the PlayStation Network in the U.S." Talk about "FAIL" LOL
