Warren Spector dials back the panic in DICE speech
The recently unemployed Warren Spector, former head of Disney's shuttered Junction Point Studio, dialed back the panic today at DICE. He's looking toward the future, and the industry's direction overall. The "57.33"-year-old legend (he hates that term) took the long view in his speech about an aging industry, having lived through many "sky is falling" scenarios.
"I have seen so much chaos in the last 35 years," said Spector. "This may seem like an especially chaotic time, a uniquely tumultuous time, but really not so much. A lot of us here lived through when the 'end of arcades' meant the end of games, when the 'end of Atari' meant the end of games, when the PC supplanted the Apple II as the primary gaming platform – that was the end of games."
He went on: "We've lived through a lot of changes and we'll live through whatever changes we have to deal with now. Chaos is where we live as video game developers. If you can't deal with that, go work in a bank ... no, wait, don't work in a bank. Go work somewhere else."
Spector said that gamers are different, game developers are different and that "we are getting older." He doesn't intend to stop gaming and feels the audience could be far more diverse, provided the industry would just go looking for that diversity. "Think about your legacy," he said.
Spector isn't quite ready to retire, either. He tossed up his LinkedIn profile at the end of the presentation, so if you're looking for a legend (don't call him that), there's one available for hire.
