Today was my last day at BioWare: Austin. It was a distinct pleasure to work at one of the finest game studios in the world for 8 years of my life. In particular, shipping Star Wars: the Old Republic has been the highlight of my career. It’s hard to leave, and I’m leaving some incredible talent behind, but for me, it’s the right thing to do.

Oh, and I’m pretty happy about all this.

How will this affect Shadow Realms and/or Star Wars: the Old Republic?

Pretty much not at all. I’ve spent my last year or so working on ‘other things’. These games remain in very capable hands. In particular, I have to give a shout out to the SWTOR team for their recent announcement of the next expansion: Shadow of Revan. It looks great, and the fan reaction to it has been fantastic. I can’t wait to see how it comes out.

What will you do next?

Well, my immediate goal is to do as little as possible for a couple of months. I may do some writing and some design consultancy, but the latter may fight with my immediate goal to wear pajama pants for as many days as humanly possible. Also, I have more Civilization: Beyond Earth to play, and I’ve signed up for my first NaNoWriMo, although this has been going terrifyingly slow so far.

I’m in no great rush – so I’m going to take a little time in order to find the actual perfect next gig. What that means, exactly, I don’t know yet, but there seems to be more than a little interest out there in starting a new studio in Austin, either an all-new studio, or a satellite of an existing company. So I think I’m going to spend a little time exploring this option, and see if there’s traction.

Interested parties should watch this space. VERY interested parties can contact me through this blog’s email. Especially those capable of writing very large checks.

Does this have anything to do with GamerGate?

No. I actually was coming to this conclusion around the time that GamerGate was just heating up. I will say that the fact that I knew my time here was coming to a close gave me more freedom to speak my mind. I certainly would have been a lot quieter if this reality was different.

Being between gigs will give me a lot more freedom to talk about this stuff, since no one can attempt to silence me any more with threats of boycotts for merely disagreeing with them. However, truth be told, I’ll be really disappointed with myself if I let this controversy devour my first ‘summer vacation’ in many years.

Anything else you want to say?

Just one: If you’re not spending your days doing something that you really love, then why not? And then, how do you get there?