Google is a very unique and highly lauded workplace, but like any other, it often loses people to the promise of a fresh challenge, and such is the case with game industry legend Noah Falstein, their chief game designer. Falstein took to his game consulting firm's blog to let the internet know that he was departing the California colossus because he simply didn't get the creative opportunities that he imagined he would. Falstein made no qualms about his opinion of Google – he said that it was a wonderful workplace, full of colleagues that he would miss dearly. Four years of watching the world of gaming revolutionize around him, however, was too much for Falstein, who's been in the video game business for over 30 years.

According to his blog entry, Falstein wants to work on the future of gaming as a medium in unique ways. Genres and subtypes of gaming that are barely emerging, such as the blending of virtual reality and neuroscience, are what interest him most at the moment. Falstein says that he plans to explore the evolution of the medium through technological leaps that make entirely new sensations and experiences possible, such as the profound human connection possible in VR that's never been possible in video games before. As the head of a consulting firm with a long history of adding a touch of greatness to projects across the industy, he's in the perfect position to do just that.

Falstein's long and storied history in gaming is nothing to sneeze at, dwarfed only by the likes of forefathers such as Nintendo's Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Falstein got his start in the industry back in the 1980s, working on various arcade games like Sinistar. From there, Falstein went on to work with LucasArts on their prodigious point and click adventure games, helping to create the SCUMM language and many of the most iconic games that used it, such as Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. From there, Falstein started his own game design consulting firm, called The Inspiracy, where he went from company to company helping to work on a vast number of big-name titles like Medal of Honor and Alan Wake.