Vorige week werd bekend dat de game director van Driveclub (Col Rodgers) Evolution Studios eind vorig jaar had verlaten. Dit bevestigde hij via Twitter en hierbij gaf hij aan dat hij op goede voorwaarden is vertrokken bij Sony en dat hij er verder niet op in zou gaan.

Kort daarop kwam insider Pete Dodd via NeoGAF met een beetje informatie en hierbij gaf hij aan dat Rodgers is ontslagen door Sony omdat hij niet op tijd de game afleverde en keer op keer deadlines niet haalde. Bijgevolg zou de game teruggegaan zijn naar de tekentafel.

Pete Dodd heeft op zich een goede reputatie wat industrie informatie betreft, maar in het geval van Col Rodgers had hij het compleet bij het verkeerde eind. Rodgers voelde zich genoodzaakt een juiste verklaring te geven en dit deed hij via NeoGAF.

Kortom, Rodgers heeft puur vanuit persoonlijke overwegingen besloten bij Sony te vertrekken en als we zijn verklaring hieronder lezen is dat niet zo heel gek. Pete Dodd is in de tussentijd verbannen van NeoGAF dit omwille van de basisregel dat mensen die insider claimen te zijn geen foute informatie mogen verstrekken.

Hello, all.

This is my first post on NeoGAF, and whilst I’m not generally one to deal in internet speculation, I have to put the record straight with regard to Pete Dodd’s comments above. Everything he has said with regard to myself and Driveclub is incorrect. It’s also libellous.

As Putty (who is a personal friend of mine, and has been for about 25 years) suggests, I left Evo in February for personal reasons. The personal reasons being that my son, who is 4 years old, has been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a potentially life threatening condition. I live 220 miles (4 hours drive) away from Evolution Studios, and was away from home 5.5 days a week. Given the circumstances, I could not continue to work there.

Driveclub is a great game, and the direction hasn’t changed since my departure. This has been confirmed by SONY in various press releases over recent days.

I have no problem in dealing with very large projects, as I’ve been working in the games industry for the last 19 years, and have worked on some very prestigious titles, so there is genuinely no truth to anything posted by Mr Dodds at all. My departure (and indeed the setup of my ‘indie’ operation, BigRedSwitch) is 100% driven by family necessity, not some professional failing on my part.

I left SONY on very good terms. There is no animosity there, and I was absolutely nothing to do with the recent redundancies – in fact, the news of those redundancies was probably linked on here before I knew about them.

The games industry is a tough place at the moment. My circumstances with my son mean that I’ve had to leave secure work in order to try to make my own way in the world. This may entail getting another job. With people who obviously know nothing about the situation blackening my reputation for the sake of internet ‘fame’, this could be made much more difficult. It’s nothing less than trolling.

I’ve contacted Mr. Dodd on his email address on his site. Due to the factual inaccuracy of his statements, I’ve informed him that he needs to remove the statements and apologise for the damage they have caused, as posting incorrect information and claiming it’s true is quite simply libel.

I’m sure you can all appreciate just how difficult things are for myself and my family at the moment. I’d genuinely appreciate it if you can take my statements as word from the origin, and realise that there has been no big cover-up when it comes to my departure from SONY/Evo.

Thanks, all.

Col.