Forza Horizon Creative Director Mike Brown Leaves Playground Games to Set Up New Studio

[Famine]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

Forza Horizon Creative Director Mike Brown Leaves Playground Games to Set Up New Studio​

In a completely unexpected development, the now-former creative director for Playground Games, Mike Brown, has parted ways with the company to form a new AAA studio along with some of his former coworkers...

 

[Auditore]

He picked the best time to do it,leaving on a high note and not having to worry about transitioning the franchise to current gen only.Big loss for Horizon tho,best Xbox franchise since 2012

 

[GTxForza]

I wish him a good future for his new company.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

The Horizon series has become so formulaic (that's being generous, the last 3 have been almost identical apart from location) so I honestly feel like this is good news - though I doubt the stagnation had anything to do with the creative team...in fact I suspect they are leaving because they didn't want to produce the same thing every 2 years ad-nauseam....which was going to continue because of things like IGNs frankly ridiculous 10/10 review.

 

[breyzipp]

His creativity probably got restricted by the higher ups at Microsoft so I understand the move. Good luck to the Maverick team!

As for the futute of FH6, it will be cookie cutter copy/paste from one title to another title anyway so who cares who the creative director will be. Hé/she will need to walk a very thin line anyway.

 

[Masterbrewww]

I would have thought he had an ownership stake in Playground Games, that must have been worth a ton given the franchise's success.

 

[GlamFM]

Hope he succeeds with his new endeavor, but I reaaaaaally hope the quality of FH doesn’t suffer.

The last one was incredible.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I wish him the best of luck with Maverick Games, though I wonder what he has in mind for the future.

 

[masterrawad]

Ooooh, exciting development. A Forza Horizon-esque game for multiple platforms, in the vision of the creative director himself? Count me in.

Of course nothing is confirmed, but we can hope...

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Ooooh, exciting development. A Forza Horizon-esque game for multiple platforms, in the vision of the creative director himself? Count me in.

Of course nothing is confirmed, but we can hope...

I wonder what kind of non-compete agreements Mike might have had with PG and how enforceable they might be. I could see a scenario in which the new studio is not legally able to produce an open world driving game.

 

[ICEYOU3]

Probably didn't want to work on fable?

 

[breyzipp]

Probably didn't want to work on fable?

I’m pretty sure he would be allowed to work on whatever game he likes within the studio.

Probably had a different vision of future games than what the studio has, or just wanted to go do his own thing. Or maybe PG just grew too big for his taste. In general, a smaller company is more dynamic and you feel like you have more of an impact. A bigger company is more sluggish.

 

[05XR8]

T10 sure didn't seem sluggish. They caught up and passed PD with numbered games AND nearly catching PD with spin-offs. Regardless of comparing the Forza franchise assets to other games.

 

[breyzipp]

T10 sure didn't seem sluggish. They caught up and passed PD with numbered games AND nearly catching PD with spin-offs. Regardless of comparing the Forza franchise assets to other games.

Maybe sluggish was the wrong word, I meant the bigger a company gets, the more its loses the ability to quickly adapt, change course, etc. And the less influence you have as an individual to make changes.

I work for the Belgian department of a USA-based multinational giant and believe me when I say that this company feels like it’s living in the 70s or 80s with all outdated rules and teams. I worked for smaller companies in the past where you see structural changes much easier and quicker. So from that aspect, maybe PG grew too big for Mike Brown’s taste.