Well, Johan already spilled the beans in this week's dev diary, but I wanted to make a post regardless: As of this week, I will no longer be in charge of EU4. In the short term, I'll be switching to Stellaris and heading up the AI work on it, after which I'll be moving on to another assignment that I can't yet talk about (still at PDS tho). Johan will be filling in as project lead on the expansion that is currently being developed.
While EU4 is very much Johan's baby, I sort of consider it my godchild. Ever since I took the helm during Art of War's development, I've immensely enjoyed working on EU4. In addition to being one of my favorite games ever, it's also been a very interesting game to design expansions for: Handling the challenges of paid vs free, working new features into a mature and already quite complex game, and balancing the desires of the community against our own plans for the game have all been valuable experiences, and while some mistakes were made along the way, I believe that I leave the game in a very strong shape, and that it will continue to get even better with future expansions and patches.
This is not goodbye. I will continue to be involved in EU4's design (providing input and feedback) and I will no doubt continue to read and post on these forums, I just won't be handling the actual day to day development of the game. As a game developer, I've always considered it important to maintain communication with your fans: They don't always know exactly what they want, and you can never please everyone, but it's always worth listening to someone who truly cares about the game, even if you may not agree with their ideas. I've found the EU4 community full of passion and ideas, and a number of features and tweaks have come directly out of this community, features and tweaks that would never have seen the light of day if nobody was willing to listen to them. So I'll still be around, listening to to you guys and passing on any good ideas I happen to spot.
And of course, I will continue playing EU4 on my own time. After all, I still have some 93 achievements to get.
While EU4 is very much Johan's baby, I sort of consider it my godchild. Ever since I took the helm during Art of War's development, I've immensely enjoyed working on EU4. In addition to being one of my favorite games ever, it's also been a very interesting game to design expansions for: Handling the challenges of paid vs free, working new features into a mature and already quite complex game, and balancing the desires of the community against our own plans for the game have all been valuable experiences, and while some mistakes were made along the way, I believe that I leave the game in a very strong shape, and that it will continue to get even better with future expansions and patches.
This is not goodbye. I will continue to be involved in EU4's design (providing input and feedback) and I will no doubt continue to read and post on these forums, I just won't be handling the actual day to day development of the game. As a game developer, I've always considered it important to maintain communication with your fans: They don't always know exactly what they want, and you can never please everyone, but it's always worth listening to someone who truly cares about the game, even if you may not agree with their ideas. I've found the EU4 community full of passion and ideas, and a number of features and tweaks have come directly out of this community, features and tweaks that would never have seen the light of day if nobody was willing to listen to them. So I'll still be around, listening to to you guys and passing on any good ideas I happen to spot.
And of course, I will continue playing EU4 on my own time. After all, I still have some 93 achievements to get.
- 132
- 132
- 1
.
