Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
A major change in the gaming industry is upon us. Jade Raymond, the founder of Motive Studios, is leaving EA. Senior Vice President of mobile, Maxis, and BioWare Samantha Ryan will take over and oversee Motive Studios.
Raymond got her start as a programmer for Sony and has gone on to executive produce games in the Assassin's Creed series, Watch Dogs, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. She was also a part of the team working on the untitled Star Wars title from Visceral Games. She founded Motive Studios at EA and developed Star Wars Battlefront 2 alongside Criterion Games and EA DICE.
Variety reported the news and was given this statement from EA Studios:
“EA Studios is focused on bringing more creative new games and content to players. Laura Miele and her team have taken several steps internally to better support our game makers in this pursuit, such as expanding Samantha Ryan’s portfolio to lead additional studios, including Motive. Samantha is known for driving creative design and supporting game teams so they can bring their visions to life. She is a deeply experienced game-maker with a gameography that spans from ‘The Sims’ to ‘Batman: Arkham City’ to ‘No One Lives Forever’ to the highly-anticipated ‘Anthem.’ With this change, Jade Raymond has decided to leave Electronic Arts. In her time with us, Jade helped to build great teams, and our projects underway at Motive and other studios continue unchanged. We’re appreciative of all of her efforts, and we wish Jade all the best as she moves on to her next adventure. We are driving greater creativity into everything we do across EA Studios, and we’ll look forward to sharing more in the months to come.”
The phrasing in the statement paints a picture where Jade Raymond was displaced from her position via Samantha Ryan's advancement, which resulted in Raymond leaving the company. There's no word on Jade Raymond's next destination as of yet. Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional updates.