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Square Enix marketing VP Karl Stewart leaves company
Former Square Enix vice-president of marketing Karl Stewart announced his departure from the company after eight years of service, and he'll begin a new job at the Burbank-based Petrol Advertising agency in April. Stewart worked in recent years at Crystal Dynamics and was one of the key figures driving the Tomb Raider reboot, which despite rumblings at a boardroom level went on to be a hit both with critics and at retailers. Stewart revealed his departure publicly in a blog post this week, in which he thanked his former employer by giving it a glowing recommendation "Square Enix is an amazing company," Stewart wrote, "whether you work for one of its studios or publishing arms, or if you're thinking of joining, this company has given me the opportunity to grow and do what I love to do best, work in creative and ridiculously talented company at the heart of the video game industry. The potential for opportunity and growth at Square Enix is limitless." Stewart will now bring his expertise to Petrol, an advertising agency that over the last decade has amassed a client list brimming with big-name games companies. "For the last 8 years I have worked with [co-founders] Alan [Hunter] and Ben [Granados] at Petrol on many different projects, from Batman to Tomb Raider to Thief, and on every occasion they've blown me away with their vision and creativity," Stewart explained. "So when the conversation started about joining the company which they've both worked extremely hard to develop and grow, there was no doubt in my mind this was the right next step for me, as they both think the same way I do. I'm all about experiences, and this is the new experience I'm looking for right now." [Image: Square Enix]
Crystal Dynamics 'not making a second' Lara Croft game, focus is on Tomb Raider [Update: CrystalD responds!]
Last year, we spoke with Crystal Dynamics' global brand director Karl Stewart, about the studio's new three team structure: the "pillar" team was hard at work on the new Tomb Raider reboot, one of the highlights of this year's E3; the experimental team was working on smaller games under the "Lara Croft" banner; and the brand team, which looks after the lucrative Tomb Raider brand and, ostensibly, oversees projects like the upcoming movie. At that time, Stewart told us, "The experimental team is basically just looking at the IP going forward and how we can take Lara to new and exciting places." The first and, as it turns out likely the last, place they took her was last year's Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, an excellent isometric downloadable co-op game. So is Crystal Dynamics still looking to take Lara to new and exciting places? Outside of the reboot, it sounds like the answer to that question is in the negative. "We're not making a second one," Stewart told me. "Not yet, or just not?" I asked. "Oh no, we're not making a second Lara. For us, that Lara Croft was, in a way, it was sort of the furthest possible extension of that iteration of Lara. Once we finished Guardian of Light, obviously we knew we were making this version of Tomb Raider," Stewart told us, referring to the reboot they were showing off during our interview. Stewart was clear that the game performed well financially. "In business terms, it was very successful," he told me. What was less successful was the implementation of its online co-op feature. "In terms of issues, the one issue that plagued us all the way through, which looking back we would've changed our minds to do other things, was definitely the online," Stewart lamented. "I wish if we had the ability and had the information, we could've been a bit more transparent." While the studio isn't pursuing the experimental Lara Croft series, it does recognize it as a successful "creative side endeavor" for the studio. In fact, Stewart told us that Daniel Neuberger, game director on Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, is now the game director of the new Tomb Raider. [Update 6/12 6:20pm: Stewart reached out to Joystiq to say clarify that CrystalD isn't "'Currently' working on a new version of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light in the near future" and to note that he "didn't use the word 'Never.'" He adds, "We don't currently have plans on the table, but it was an exciting project and you just never know." We've asked Stewart to clarify whether or not the "experimental team" is still in operation in the above-mentioned three group structure.]
Tomb Raider PS3 trilogy pack confirmed, details to follow shortly
Lady Croft's latest adventures -- excluding the downloadable Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light -- are getting bundled up in early 2011 for a Tomb Raider Trilogy pack on PlayStation 3. Karl Stewart, global brand director for Crystal Dynamics, confirmed this weekend's leak on his Twitter account. He noted that a full announcement would be made shortly. If the Amazon listing is accurate, the Blu-ray compilation will include Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, both of which will be available for the first time on the console, along with 2008's Tomb Raider: Underworld. You'll also get male and female avatars for PlayStation Home and an XMB theme. This looks to be the last send-off for the obsessive and occasionally mean Lara introduced by Crystal Dynamics in 2006. She'll experience another reboot in Tomb Raider -- just "Tomb Raider" -- next year.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will not have online co-op until Sept. 28
We hope you've got space for Lara Croft and one guardian of light on your couch, because that's where the heroic pair will find themselves on August 18th. Developer Crystal Dynamics has confirmed that when Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light launches on Xbox Live Arcade, concluding Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion, it will only support offline co-op. Online co-op, as well as Xbox Live standards like full leaderboard support and voice chat functionality, will be introduced via a free update on September 28. On the same day, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will arrive on PlayStation Network and Steam. The baffling omission of the online component appears to have been made at the last minute, with Crystal Dynamics global brand director Karl Stewart telling Joystiq, "We made a decision recently because we were focusing on how we can deliver the best possible experience to the players. If we had launched with online co-op, we wouldn't feel comfortable that it was the best possible experience for the player." Though online co-op had been promoted and promised since the game's announcement, Stewart claims that "nothing underhanded" influenced the decision. "This is our first digital title and we want to make sure we deliver the best possible experience to players." It's a tough decision: delay the game on Xbox Live Arcade and miss out on Summer of Arcade promotion, or get an imperfect version in front of players first. Either way, it's a disappointing scenario for all parties involved, including Microsoft. You can play Lara Croft on Xbox Live Arcade first -- but not on Xbox Live at first.
Interview: Karl Stewart on Lara Croft and the new Crystal Dynamics
At Square Enix's pre-E3 event yesterday, we got a chance to talk with Karl Stewart, global brand director for Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics. We asked him about the reorganization inside the developer (which lead directly to the development of the already impressive Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light), its new approach to managing the Tomb Raider brand and how its new focus is affecting the way other Eidos studios work. We also got a taste of just how outside-the-box its new "experimental team" can go. Joystiq: This reorganization all happened after the Square Enix acquisition? Karl Stewart: We had actually been going through the shakeup at the studio prior to it, and really we had already presented that we knew we needed to make a drastic change for the studio and that continuing down the same path wasn't really going to cut it any longer. So Darrell Gallagher had taken over the studio at that time and he had some great ideas about how to sort of retool the studio, and it was around then that Square Enix came aboard, purchased us, so we presented our vision for it and they thought it was the right way to go. And as a result, we continued down that path. This was after the release of Underworld? Yeah, this was. Underworld had shipped, the DLC for 360 had already shipped and we just realized that when we started looking at our next game we knew that we needed to take a step back and build the next big title and it wasn't going to come year after year. That's been one of our frustrations: seeing the titles come out year after year after year, so we decided that was the end of that.
