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People News Brian Fargo plans to retire after Wasteland 3 is released

Infinitron

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Tags: Brian Fargo; InXile Entertainment; Wasteland 3

Five years after he helped kick off the era of crowdfunded oldschool RPG development, it looks like Brian Fargo has had enough. In an exchange with Eurogamer, the founder of Interplay and CEO of inXile has made the unusual choice of announcing his retirement from the gaming industry over two and a half years in advance. Wasteland 3 will be his last game. I quote:

inXile boss Brian Fargo has told Eurogamer he plans to retire after Wasteland 3 ships in 2019.

The industry veteran, who founded influential game company Interplay in 1983, said he wanted to relax after a lengthy career making successful games.

"Wasteland 2 and Torment both came out great," he said. "The Mage's Tale's got a great buzz. The Bard's Tale 4 looks spectacular. Wasteland 3 is building on Wasteland 2. It seems like a good time to drop the mic.

"I love this industry, but I've been at this since 1981. I've been at it with Ken and Roberta Williams [Sierra co-founders], Trip Hawkins [EA founder], the guys from Brøderbund - I look at my friends, they have a lot more spare time than I do. It's a very intense business. It's all encompassing. It seems like I should relax for a little bit."

[...] Fargo now plans to retire when Wasteland 3 comes out in 2019, calling time on what will be a 38-year career. "I have plenty of time," he said. "It's not tomorrow."

Fargo intends to leave inXile in the capable hands of its current staff as well as existing shareholders, but he said it's too early to say who will succeed him as boss of the company.

"I have some wonderfully competent people who are making it happen here," he said. "One of the things I enjoy the most is finding and fostering talent. Certainly, externally everybody knows we gave Blizzard and BioWare their first shots. Internally I have my own guys who are just great. They're very tuned into these products. I'm good at finding these people and putting the talent together. I've been training these people for years to make me obsolete. That's what you have to do as a leader of a company."

Fargo said he will leave inXile a profitable independent game developer with "money in the bank".

"We don't owe any external people any money. We don't have any debt. The other shares are with some of the employees of the company. So as long as it continues doing good product it should be fine."

So, what will Fargo do when he retires?

"I've always wanted to go Machu Picchu," he said.

"I can't even imagine being unplugged for a month. I'm on 24/7. I wake up in the morning to my emails and I go to sleep to my emails. There are things going on all the time and you want to give people information quickly, because me being slow could affect four people going slow. I feel that all the time. And often we have people around the globe I'm communicating with also.

"I quite enjoy it, but from a peace of mind it would be a dream to not have to wake up and be concerned about anything for a while. The games business is very intense. It's the entertainment business mixed in with technology. It doesn't get much more difficult.

"I started Interplay in 1983. I think I'm one of The Last of the Mohicans. Most, if not all of the old guard has gone on and relaxed. That's a long time, right? I should get an award just for survival."

Until then, Fargo is focused on The Mage's Tale, a virtual reality spin-off set within The Bard's Tale universe, The Bard's Tale 4, due out in 2018, and Wasteland 3, due out in 2019.

Wasteland 3, then, will be Fargo's last game.

"It puts even more pressure on my to make damn sure that thing is stellar," he said.
Brian will be nearly 57 years old on the game's expected release date of October 2019. A good age to retire from a young man's industry. So much for those "new ideas", though!
 

Azalin

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Fargo intends to leave inXile in the capable hands of its current staff as well as existing shareholders, but he said it's too early to say who will succeed him as boss of the company.



gTG3D7e.jpg
 

karnak

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Maybe it's better that he retires, while he can still make some decent games, instead of staying in the industry and becoming a giant never-stopping creative genius like Richard Garriott.

xlarge.jpg
 

MicoSelva

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That must be a recent development. Maybe something changed in his personal life, or he got discouraged after Torment's sales turned out disappointing.
 

waveplay

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That must be a recent development. Maybe something changed in his personal life, or he got discouraged after Torment's sales turned out disappointing.
Nah it makes perfect sense that after 38 years of an intense career he'd want to call it quits. Why always speculate on some secret reason?
 

MicoSelva

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Nah it makes perfect sense that after 38 years of an intense career he'd want to call it quits. Why always speculate on some secret reason?
Because just until recently he seemed very enthusiastic about continuing to make games, especially for VR, which he is a huge fan of.

Check the article that Infinitron linked to (dated September 2016), in which BF does not sound like someone who plans to quit the industry anytime soon.
 

DeepOcean

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His career was very eventful full of very highs and very lows, the recent games he made are just mediocre, being very generous, I can't even qualify Torment with the "Good for what it is." seal, if he doesn't have passion and energy anymore, it is better to retire. It is hard to know who was who inside Interplay and how we can really credit Fargo for some of the best games made by that company, maybe he didn't have anything to do with them and was just a manager guy like many others, only interested on making money, or if he had a much more active role on them and really cared about them beyond products, it is hard to know.

It is hard to know if he was responsible for those quality games or that they were just a product of their time and if Interplay had survived, it would be just another EA kind of soulless money machine and Brain Fargo another Bobby Kotick of life.

I need to thank him for not cancelling Fallout 1 but those latest meh games are a disappointment.
 
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HobGoblin42

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"I started Interplay in 1983. I think I'm one of The Last of the Mohicans. Most, if not all of the old guard has gone on and relaxed.

Not sure what he meant with 'Last of the Mohicans' and 'old guard' but if he is talking about veteran game developers, that statement is simply untrue.

220px-Weisman_crop.jpg

Created FASA in 1980 and still active.

latest

Developed Ultima in 1980 and still active.

586785-chris_roberts_9.jpg

Started developing games in 1985 and still/again active (after some misfortunes in Hollywood)

220px-Warren_Spector_MF.jpg

Developing computer games since 1989 (tabletop since 1983) and still active.

pneurath.png

Developing computer games since 1986 and still active.

260px-200px-Shigeru_Miyamoto_cropped.jpg

Developing games since 1977 (!) and still active

rongilbert.jpg

Developing games since 1983 and just released his new game "Thimbleweed Park"


I could easily add another 20 still active veterans who started their career in the 80s.
 
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karnak

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"I started Interplay in 1983. I think I'm one of The Last of the Mohicans. Most, if not all of the old guard has gone on and relaxed.

Not sure what he meant with 'old guard' but if he is talking about veteran game developers, that statement is simply untrue.

220px-Weisman_crop.jpg

Created FASA in 1980 and still active.

latest

Developed Ultima in 1980 and still active.

586785-chris_roberts_9.jpg

Started developing games in 1985 and still/again active (after some misfortunes in Hollywood)

220px-Warren_Spector_MF.jpg

Developing computer games since 1989 (tabletop since 1983) and still active.

pneurath.png

Developing computer games since 1986 and still active.

rongilbert.jpg

Developing games since 1983 and just released his new game "Thimbleweed Park"


I could easily add another 20 still active veterans who started their career in the 80s.
You can also add Julian Gollop to that list.
Honestly, except for Jordan Weisman, I think that most of those devs could've retired by now. Their latest creations've been... er... (...)
 
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Lurker King

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It is hard to know if he was responsible for those quality games or that they were just a product of their time and if Interplay had survived, it would be just another EA kind of soulless money machine and Brain Fargo another Bobby Kotick of life.

Tim Cain made Fallout engine in his spare time, dude. Stop and think for a minute. He had a genius working there. The only thing he actually did was approving the game, which was his obligation. His omissive behavior in ignoring Cain’s complaints about FO2 direction, and his megalomaniac projects that lead Interplay to the ground were an omen of what was to come. If anything, people like Fargo shows how ignorant most gamers are, how easy you can take credit for other people’s work in the game industry.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
He also named it. :M

Brian Fargo is like Warren Spector - the kind of high level creative executive producer who gets too much credit when things go well, but is then accused by grognards of not having had anything to do with the old games when things go bad.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. The fact that there is an identifiable genre of "Spector game" and "Fargo game" means that they did exert some sort of influence, however elusive it might be.
 
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Junmarko

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His omissive behavior in ignoring Cain’s complaints about FO2 direction, and his megalomaniac projects that lead Interplay to the ground were an omen of what was to come.
Brian Fargo is like Warren Spector - the kind of high level creative executive producer who gets credit when things go well, but is then accused by grognards of not having had anything to do with the old games when things go bad.

Agree with both of you. The Spector comparison is an astute one. He starts off with a gamer's motivation, then quickly succumbs to suit-like behaviour down the line.

Initiates good projects, but can't keep the good momentum going...huh...also makes me think of...

op5czrf9ddffrf6bs1gj.jpg
 
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AMG

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The fact that there is an identifiable genre of "Spector game" and "Fargo game" means that they did exert some sort of influence, however elusive it might be.
What are the qualities of a "Fargo game"? That distinction seems like a big stretch.
 

Spectacle

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The fact that there is an identifiable genre of "Spector game" and "Fargo game" means that they did exert some sort of influence, however elusive it might be.
What are the qualities of a "Fargo game"? That distinction seems like a big stretch.
Generating off-the-scale levels of butthurt on the Codex.
 

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