A few weeks ago we wrote the story that Daniel Erickson was “Actively looking for new opportunities” . Today Mr. Erickson confirms this rumor via twitter as he has started his new twitter account for job hunting and design thoughts. Back in early September, we saw via Erickson’s LinkedIn profile that he was looking for new opportunities. We speculated about what this might mean but warned against jumping to conclusions and thinking this meant he was leaving BioWare. However, with so many BioWare Austin staff members making their exits, it wouldn’t be a big surprise.
Well, now we stumbled across this Tweet and this new Twitter account from Daniel Erickson and it’s clear that he has officially left BioWare and is on the job hunt. So he has known for at very least, the month of September that he was leaving or was already gone.
So now that we do know it is official, what does it mean? Well, it means Daniel is moving on to other things in his career and hopefully many new exciting opportunities and it means that BioWare is losing yet another qualified, talented employee. What we don’t know are the conditions of this separation. There is no mention of Erickson being cut like many others earlier in the year. So this leads one to believe he left of his own accord. Was his contract with the team up? Did he get offered a better position elsewhere? And if so, why does it say he is on the “job hunt”?
Maybe there is something bigger happening behind the scenes at BioWare Austin that we don’t know about right now. Some are saying it’s due to the “failure” of SWTOR. I don’t buy this- at least not alone as a theory. First, some can still argue the point of whether or not it’s a failure. Secondly, lots of games fail and the staff at the gaming companies stay on board and they make new games or they make changes to the failed games to improve them. They don’t just pack up and move on. After the doctors leaving, and now this, will there be any original staff who stick around by the time the dust settles?
We will be updating more on this story as new facts emerge. Stay tuned.
