An increasing common tale in the games industry is that developers are quitting their jobs in AAA game development to go indie. It’s a risky move, and one that has developers giving up a guaranteed gig to pursue their passion. Daniel Weinbaum, who was formerly an environment artist at Infamous developer Sucker Punch, recently released his first PlayStation 4 game since leaving the studio called Leaving Lyndow. We’ll have a review up later today, but first we talked to Weinbaum to learn why he left the studio to pursue the uncertainty that is being an indie dev.
PlayStation LifeStyle: You used to work at Sucker Punch. Can you talk about your background, and working for that studio"
Daniel Weinbaum: I was at Sucker Punch for a little over a year, and I was an environment artist. Anything you see in the game that?s not a person like a fire hydrant or a building, I would make that kind of stuff. I got that job right after working for a small outsource studio, and I had gotten that job after spending one year at ArenaNet as an intern. So, I had done environment art for three and a half years in AAA development. Did you leave AAA development because you wanted to do more since I see a lot of people get fed up with doing just one thing and then move into the indie space"
DW: Yeah, for sure. You definitely do one thing. Once you get into the industry, once you?re hired for something, if you want to do something else well chances are you?re not very good at...