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People News David Gaider leaves Beamdog

Infinitron

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Tags: Beamdog; David Gaider; Trent Oster

Precisely two years after joining Beamdog as Creative Director, David Gaider has abruptly left the studio without having produced a single title during his tenure. His departure was announced on Beamdog's company blog:

Today, Beamdog bids farewell to our Creative Director, David Gaider.

Dave came to Beamdog during interesting times. Since then, he has been teacher, mentor, and friend to many on the team. We’ve seen Dave conjure new worlds we’d love to play in, and spin stories in places already close to our hearts. Someday we will share the fruits of his labour!

Most lasting, Dave has built a creative team that will shape the stories Beamdog tells in the years to come. He has freely shared his incredible wealth of storytelling and narrative design experience with the developers, designers, and artists around him. We’ve all learned a lot from Dave and we hope he picked up a trick or two from us as well.

As fans of Dragon Age, KoTOR, Baldur’s Gate, and many of the other incredible worlds Dave has helped create, we’re excited to find out what’s next (come on, give us a clue Dave!) be it a new game, novel, or whatever else it is you choose to create.

We’ll certainly miss your lunchtime stories. Best of luck Dave!
It's unclear what this means for the Dungeons & Dragons RPG that Beamdog have been speculated to be working on since 2016. Has it been cancelled? Was it actually Planescape: Unraveled? The wording of their announcement suggests that Beamdog may intend to proceed with the creative team that Gaider built, but were unable to keep him onboard for whatever reason. As for the man himself, who knows? Perhaps he'll return to BioWare, or perhaps he has yet more far-flung adventures to embark on.

Update: Over at PC Gamer, Trent Oster reveals that this departure has been planned for a while:

Beamdog co-founder Trent Oster said Gaider's departure has been in the works for awhile, so the impact on current projects will be minimal. "Dave was a valued member of our team and has done a lot of great work for us over the last two years," Oster said. "While we're sad to see Dave go, we are anxious to step up and show how we have grown as a studio and as a team."
Does that mean there's going to be an announcement soon?
 
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Looks like this dog is chasing its tail. I suspected as much from the overall lack of news.

They have the misfortune of working with Hasbro/WotC, one of the most mercurial partners in third party development anyone could wish to meet.
 

Kem0sabe

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Most lasting, Dave has built a creative team that will shape the stories Beamdog tells in the years to come

:smug:

sjw-freakshow-lauren-southern.jpg
 

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Inb4 new "Creative Lead" at Obsidian.

That's Boyarsky's job title!

Considering his first choice was to work for another company in Edmonton upon leaving BioWare, your first assumption should be that he's going to return there. Not sure if Gaider is up for long-distance stuff.
 
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Inb4 new "Creative Lead" at Obsidian.

That's Boyarsky's job title!

Considering his first choice was to work for another company in Edmonton upon leaving BioWare, your first assumption should be that he's going to return there. Not sure if Gaider is up for long-distance stuff.

I was just going for my laughs. My first guess is that he is going the way of Guido Henkel or Drew Karpyshyn -- small and mostly aimless independent projects.

I just can't imagine that anyone, especially the old hats, wants to work at Bioware these days.

That being said, I have a vague instinct that companies working the RPG niche are always in aggressive counter hiring mode, so anything is possible.
 
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LESS T_T

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If their recent job postings are any indications, they're currently working on a HTML5 web strategy game (possibly an adaptation of Axis & Allies, owned by WotC) and console ports of EEs, as well as Neverwinter Nights: EE.
 

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I'm not a fan of Gaider, his work or style. Same goes for Beamdog. It is still a "win" so to speak that their unholy SJW effort to make a game didn't pan out.

That being said, there was a certain convenience factor, while David was employed at Beamdog, as it was possible to ignore two sources of decline at the same time.
 
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He left to fulfill his dreams of writing gay Harlequin novels.

I don't understand why he is intent on returning to Edmonton, it's a pretty unhospitable place for him, because people are the strong, take no-nonsense blue collar type. I do like living here though.
 

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I can't break his balls too hard, he did work on BGII, still one of my favorites. But then he wrote that awful, awful Dragon Age book. I'm torn.

:dgaider:
 

Immortal

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It's unclear what this means for the Dungeons & Dragons RPG that Beamdog have been speculated to be working on since 2016. Has it been cancelled? Was it actually Planescape: Unraveled?


It appears that the team David Gaider was heading is Kaput Actually.
Call me a Tinfoil Hat but this was a little telling:

(Start at 47:15)
https://youtu.be/jaLoDNLP7Z0?t=47m15s


TL;DR -
They had 4 Teams.. one team has very recently disappeared because *pause* "reasons" (Just look at Phil's face)
Another "Ideas only" team bites the dust.

They still have a secret Project in the works:
Team 1 - Infinity Engine Team
Team 2 - Neverwinter Team
Team 3 - Other Team

Team 4: My money is on Gaider working Asynchronously on some other concept idea that never went anywhere.
 
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LESS T_T

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It seems more like they couldn't afford developers for his team, either from other teams (doing EEs and a browser game) or hiring new ones.
 

Immortal

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It seems more like they couldn't afford developers for his team, either from other teams (doing EEs and a browser game) or hiring new ones.

They could afford it, if there was some reasonable expectation that a finished product was gonna be finished and sold.
No company can afford paying some layabout who dicks around all day for several years.
 

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