FYI: Paul Barnett is Not Leaving BioWare Mythic
This tweet from BioWare Mythic’s creative director, Paul Barnett, touched off a bit of controversy in the comments to this article:
Granted, it was easily misunderstood.
That tweet was accompanied by this picture:
No Origin posters?
And certainly, it was easy to make the assumption that the man was making the move to a new role, away from Mythic. Sacramento, after all, is nowhere near Fairfax, and working between offices in the two locations would require “That Barnett Bloke” to spend a lot of time above 30,000 feet.
Even I was a bit thrown by this, and shot Paul a quick tweet asking him what the deal was. A few others chimed in, commenting on the article linked above with well-wishing and remarks about how this was very oddly timed, especially given the recent news about Richard Garriott and the Ultima IP.
Fortunately, it has since been confirmed to me that Paul is not, in fact, leaving BioWare Mythic. He is, in fact, now going to be working out of two offices, and likely earning lots and lots of points on his airline of choice in the process.
So: let’s try and stop this particular rumour in its tracks, okay? There’s been enough wild speculation on the Internet this week already.
I wish him the best of luck in his new position!
Good job on the rumor control Dungy. Paul’s probably there to help Garriott set up his new office and make introductions to the new team. I’m guessing Portalarium’s tech will be merged with the EA’s Origin service at some point. There; now all the rumors should be firmly stamped out.
Not to put too fine a point on it…but if this were indicative of a partnership between Portalarium and EA, what the heck does Sacramento have to do with anything?
“I’m guessing Portalarium’s tech will be merged with the EA’s Origin service at some point”
Hmmm I don’t think Garriot after so many battles with EA would make a new company just to team up again with EA???? Or am I missing something?
Either you thought I was serious or it just wasn’t very funny. I was just playing around. I wouldn’t know what Sacramento had to do with anything in any context. If Garriott sold Portalarium to EA I’d probably just give up on admiring people. That would amount to the nail in the coffin of human stupidity. Anyway, please excuse my poor sense of humor.
@Zygon Dragon: I was responding to WtF, but yeah, I was just messing around since he mentioned rumor control.
Hopefully Garriott wouldn’t do that, but you never really know. As they say, money talks, and EA has a lot of it. I think EA doesn’t want anything to do with Garriott, that they’re firmly convinced they don’t need him and that there’s a large chance any real involvement with him would be detrimental to their projects. I know that’s shitty, but that’s the vibe I get from what we know so far. That is why I opined a call to arms. If you can’t join them, beat them. Garriott’s a rare soul who if properly focused can still slay dragons.
The only thing that could potentially make EA wants to buy Portalarium… is if the company starts making a buttload of cash (like say, if Ultimate Collector is a crazy commercial hit.)
There’s no garantuee Garriott would be interested in selling though, hopefully he won’t make the same mistake a third time (altough he wouldn’t be he only one to decide in this case) especially since he seems very happy to finally be back into an independant structure without any “evil overlord” running things.
A partnership is a different thing altogether though.
Ultimate Cash Cow Clicker. Investing in a transient fad as a means to acquire more capital and produce one’s “ideal game” is good if it gets you more credit for the project and you actually get the work done. Hopefully he’ll just get it done and produce some eloquent software for us to enjoy. We’d all do the same.
“Good job on the rumor control Dungy.”
What did I say?
After WtF spoke about quelling rumors you wished Paul well in his new position, which sounded like it fed in to the initial rumors of him leaving the company. Damn, my sense of humor must be beyond all mortals comprehension. 🙁