EuroGamer
Dean Hall to leave Bohemia and step down as leader of DayZ
24 FEB 2014
by Robert Purchese

Dean Hall intends to leave developer Bohemia and step down as leader of his hit video game DayZ by the end of the year, Eurogamer can exclusively reveal. The game he created will be left in the hands of the team he leads today.

He will start his own studio in his home country of New Zealand, where he'll keep trying to create that elusive, perfect multiplayer game.

Dean Hall told me this without any fanfare while we were in Bohemia's motion capture studio outside of Prague, Czech Republic. I sat him down the next day for an explanation.

"I am a grenade," he began, this time sat in the DayZ office in central Prague. "I have a specific use. I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life. Like you say, maybe I've got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it.

"That's what I did with DayZ; I've done it twice now [once with the mod, again with the standalone] - two new code teams have separately done it.

"But eventually, that's the bad person to have. Eventually, you don't want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I'll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role.
"And also, I never intended to be here," he added, referencing his original plan to stay months - as a break from the New Zealand army - not years (two and counting). DayZ swept him off his feet.

"And it's kind of like cooking in someone else's kitchen: I don't want to be constantly telling Bohemia that this is how I do it and this is the way we do it."

Much can change in a year, of course. Is Hall's mind set? "Oh, it's set. Definitely," he nodded. But he won't leave DayZ in the lurch - won't leave at a crucial time. "I would extend my involvement here as long as Bohemia wanted - needed - me," he stressed. In other words, there's flexibility.

"Originally I wasn't going to do this year, but it would be stupid not to, and it would be unfair to the community. I have to be on the project as long as it's important to. Whether that role is as the leader, whether that role is in a more creative sense... But at a certain point there will be diminishing returns.

"The thing is, if I'm involved in the project, I'll be fighting anybody on the project to make sure it's good, so for the rest of the year, I'm there. And I don't just sit around; it doesn't matter if I'm the cleaner or the leader or whatever, I will be making sure - I will be in Marek's [Spanel, CEO] office yelling at him. I'm notorious for it."

He realises, too, that he'll never walk away completely from DayZ. "I'll be always involved," he said. "I would be surprised, and Bohemia would as well - I remember talking about this with Marek... I'll always be involved with it; there's no way to escape it."

The news will be a blow to the DayZ community, which this morning Hall said numbers more than 1.5 million people, although not all are necessarily active. It's a community he goes to great lengths to be a part of. Few other developers are so accessible, so transparent, so involved.

"Yes, I can see people being freaked out about it," he said, "and I saw what happened with Notch." Markus "Notch" Persson abruptly stepped down from being lead developer of Minecraft in order to take a break. "That's why it's better to just address the elephant in the room. It's also fairer for Bohemia as well, rather than for me to just turn around one day and say 'see ya'. This isn't my home. And also it's a bit different with Notch: he set up his own studio - this isn't my studio.

"I can't - and nor should I - turn around and say and say 'this is how we do it'. I don't even know how their country works, their labour laws or anything. And, you know, I miss home."

So he'll go home - home to New Zealand, to a studio of his own. Setting it up is a process that will take "years", so he'll - his people will - "start it cooking" now.

"I guess most people would have not said anything," he shrugged, "but I want to avoid a Notch-like situation so that everybody knows that one day - publishers as well - I'm going to come knocking. But it's not going to be under traditional terms, it's going to be different."

Bohemia told me that it was aware of Hall's plans and this "did not come as a surprise". "Under the guidance of Dean, DayZ's development will continue to move full-steam ahead, and we're expecting to make a lot of progress this year - and in the year(s) after that of course," a spokesperson said.

Hall has three new game ideas written already, he told me, plus another two that need more work.

"A lot of them have similar DNA [to DayZ]," he said, because he's "fascinated" by multiplayer games and because he's "very interested" in survival games.

"I feel like DayZ is a fundamentally flawed concept," he went on, "and I've always recognised that. It's not the perfect game; it's not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, [with] the absolute spark that I want in it."

The perfect multiplayer experience: "I want to chase that."



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incgamers
DayZ, Dean Hall’s Departure and the Dramas of Early Access
25 FEB 2014
by Peter Parrish

Dean “Rocket” Hall has announced his desire to leave the DayZ project by the end of 2014, and people are freaking out.

That frustration is understandable. Hall is the DayZ figurehead, the original creative force behind the mod that eventually led to a stand-alone alpha version on Steam’s Early Access, and the public face of the project. He’s the man who gives the interviews (including the one which broke this departure story) and posts regular updates about the game through his twitter and DayZ forum accounts.

It’s reasonable to assume that the Rocket-less DayZ will be a somewhat different title. One look at how the DayZ Arma II mod version is being handled without him will confirm this theory.

I’m willing to bet that his enthusiasm and vision for the DayZ stand-alone project is what convinced a fair number of people to take the plunge on the Early Access alpha version. Not everybody. Probably not even a majority. But some of those Early Access sales will be down, in part, to people’s faith in Hall to deliver on the proposed updates and scope of the stand-alone title.

There’s a semi-famous example of bad games writing which opens with the following line: ‘”There’s a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,” says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.’ As well as hilarious irony, it highlights how difficult it is for people to separate the team project from the lone figurehead. Even in a sentence which is trying to do exactly that.

It’s extremely rare for a game to be made by one person, but certain characters will always be synonymous with a given series. Ken Levine with BioShock, Markus “Notch” Persson with Minecraft and, indeed, Warren Spector with Deus Ex.

Had Notch chosen to leave Minecraft far earlier in the development process than he ultimately did, there would have been a loud, negative public reaction. Rightly so, as Mojang had effectively employed a proto-Early Access system to finance the game and made certain promises about what features the title would have upon release.

Of course, an important factor in all this is that Hall is not actually leaving DayZ yet. He has stated his intention to do so, but plans to be around until sometime at the end of this year. That’s the same period when DayZ is said to be heading towards a beta release. There’s no telling if that schedule will be met, or how “feature complete” the game will be at that stage, but it would be best to hold off on any rapid judgments about the title being doomed until it’s known what state the game will be in when Hall does actually leave.

But there is some justified anger at the timing of this announcement. DayZ only entered Early Access back in December. In the interview, Hall says that he “originally wasn’t going to do this year,” but relented because he felt it would be unfair to the community. From this, we can infer that he’s had the departure from DayZ on his mind for a while. Perhaps even before the game appeared on Early Access.

It’s hard to fault the general all-caps disclaimer that the title still has on it’s store page, which states “THIS GAME IS EARLY ACCESS ALPHA. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU … ARE PREPARED TO HANDLE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES AND POSSIBLE INTERRUPTIONS OF GAME FUNCTIONING.” What it doesn’t mention though, is anything about the creator’s intentions to leave the project within the next 12 months. If Hall had this in mind before the Early Access launch, there’s a strong case for saying that information should have been disclosed to the public.

Few of the thousands of people who’ve kept DayZ towards the top of Steam’s sales charts bought it purely on the strength of Hall’s involvement, but certainly the knowledge that he might be leaving the team before the end of 2014 would have factored into many of those purchasing decisions.

The nature of Early Access puts a title in the public eye, and in choosing to enter that open development process developers take on additional responsibilities and external expectations. In return for those new responsibilities, they get a lot of public money up front.

Hall shouldn’t be blamed for wanting to depart from the project. His position makes sense, and it’d take a severely jaded soul not to empathise with his desire to return to his family in New Zealand. In dedicating himself to another 10-12 months or so on DayZ, he stands a decent chance of fulfilling some of the commitments he made to the game’s community and leaving with the title in (or close to) beta form. His reminders that there will be a whole team left at Bohemia to carry on working on the game are quite correct.

But nor should it be a surprise that people are upset and discouraged by what they will feel is the early abandonment of the project by its main creative force.

There’s no telling now whether DayZ will reach its potential, or whether the game’s legacy will be as an inspiration for other open world survival titles to fulfill that promise. Hall has made his choice for legitimate reasons, and parts of the community have responded with understandable disappointment. In the debate over his departure, almost everyone has a point. Including Hall himself.

If blame should be apportioned anywhere, it’s on the Early Access system. Valve’s platform for unfinished projects has certain benefits, but the bulk of those are in favour of developers and few (aside from a chance to look at a work in progress) are there to aid the customer. It’s a system where, as with DayZ, changing circumstances can leave buyers with a nasty surprise. No matter how loud and comprehensive the disclaimer on a game is, it can never hope to encompass the problems and pitfalls that might beset a project between an early alpha build and a full release.

As a result of the Early Access system DayZ’s development is playing out in public, and players are seeing some of the unpredictable, chaotic changes that occur in the process of games development. They’re also paying for the privilege. Some may now be rethinking that purchase.

Reddit
24 FEB 2014
by Dean Hall

To clarify a couple of important points:

I'm still the project lead of DayZ, and there are currently no plans I'm aware of to replace me in that role.

Ultimately, even if I did leave - DayZ belongs to Bohemia and there is a very large and ever-growing team of people working on it. While I appreciate the sentiment, It's rather insulting to them to suggest that without me the whole project would suddenly implode. The community, Bohemia, and myself have plenty of time to make plans for the long term development: but whatever happens I want to be back with my family in 2015.

Bohemia develop's and sells DayZ. I contracted to assist them with this process on a yearly basis. I certainly don't get all, most, or even the large share of sales money. That money goes to the studio which is used to fund development - as it should be. This is used to hire really skilled and awesome people - it's those people who develop the game and I've been working with those talented people to realize the vision.

I miss home, I want to return to New Zealand to be with my family after being away many years. It is my intention to do that next year, but I'm flexible. I said the same thing internally last year, this year I'm being more deliberate about it so everyone can plan for it.

I'm very critical of the work I do, I believe that's why I can do work that ends up quite successful. I'm very critical not just of the delivery of work I do but the base concepts behind them. I like to share and discuss those critiques because I think that makes me a better designer through the process.

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Reddit
More comments about his claim that it is a flawed game:
24 FEB 2014
by Dean Hall

That was one comment made in the middle of a four hour interview What I'm referring to there, is that I see DayZ as having elements of the "ultimate multiplayer experience" but I was discussing with the interviewer all the things that I did not think were perfect about DayZ. We were discussing the ways in which I believe the concept - the core design - that I came up with is flawed. There are things the game cannot do because of the way I designed it. These are important lessons that I take heed of.
However, they don't detract from the game at all, and indeed to change these would dramatically change the game and not necessarily for the better (for example: I could just be completely wrong). The DayZ game should head in the direction it is, but any future game I make should take into account what I feel are flaws in my previous design(s).

Wouldn't you say you're just being a perfectionist though?

Yes, I believe that's what it is. But the reason I make games is because of my dream to do this. It does not matter to me if I achieve that or not, I enjoy the challenge of trying to meet that goal.

I would be so burnt out on it
I would not say I am at that point now, but by the end of 2014 I will have been working for over three years on the project. I need to ensure that I eventually start transitioning to me being back in New Zealand. I can't sustain the pace of development I have been putting myself through for the few years. It's been a 24/7, no break, activity. There is no "off" days for me, there are always media requests, drama, problems, issues - it never ends.

Im not complaining at all, I'm just stating that as the person pointed out : it is important to have contingency planning for things like burnout. It is also important to consider how someone exits their role with a project, and that is exactly what is occurring.Eventually, I need to return to New Zealand. Heck, there are serious visa issues I have to overcome if I stayed at Czech too long as well. I'm not a European citizen and I cannot speak Czech.
I'm not jumping ship but it's clear that I cannot be the project lead forever. And really, it's actually not my decision to make: Bohemia own's DayZ and there is a very large team of people working on the vision for it. My job is to work towards the team not even really needing me to continue with that vision.

I think this is yet another "foot-in-mouth" instance for Mr. Dean Hall. Surprisingly, he looks to be trying to do damage control rather promptly rather than waiting a couple months to make a public announcement. Perhaps, it's time for another boon-doggle to climb some mountain. I can't believe he is repeatedly saying he needs some urgent reunion with his mother.

I think the problem comes form media embellishing what he says and putting words in his mouth. If you read only the quotes, he keeps saying the same thing. He is home sick and wants to keep striving to achieve the 'perfect' mmo while helping with the current development of DayZ as long as Bohemia wants him and he feels it is productive.

I agree. EuroGamer took a kernel of information and blew it up into a story to get folks worked up. The issue is not as bad as EuroGamer is painting.