Over on his blog a few days ago, Asher Vollmer announced that he has left his job at thatgamecompany to become an (even more) independent game developer. Aware that people will wonder why he's left “one of the indie-est companies on the planet… to go indie”, he explains that he was unhappy because he couldn't work on his own projects. Instead, he had to devote his time to the slow progress of the company's new game, which he says is years away from completion.
“There are YEARS remaining on the project and, quite frankly, those are years I don't want to give up for a game that isn't truly mine.”
Despite the slog ahead of him had he stayed at thatgamecompany, Vollmer says that turning his back on the project is not something he did casually.
“Obviously I can't divulge any details about it, but… It's going to be huge. And I don't mean it's going to be a long sprawling game, I mean it's going to be an IMPORTANT game. I genuinely believe it's going to change the industry in a really positive way.”
Now, Journey was a game changer in a sense. It certainly wowed us enough to get several perfect review scores and win an astonishingly large number of awards, despite its spiritual nature and focus on companionship rather than competition. So for this new game to have the kind of impact Vollmer suggests, it'll have to go much further than Journey did. Can you imagine a game that we'll talk about more than we've talked about Journey? What would that look like?