Is this a press release?

Nope, Aaron, we just know Chris, who is fairly high profile in the community, and we think his departure bears mentioning. (He didn't release a press release about it.)

Got to agree with Aaron on this one. A news site looses a lot of credibility when it starts bigging up it's friends and passing the stories off as news.

Sorry, but his departure from Maxis is newsworthy.

Peter,

Would it have been news if it had been an executive? We've certainly run stories like that in the past with no complaint. At what point does a developer's departure become news? Hecker is a well-known figure, and Maxis is a well-known studio.

@Simon @ Chris

I think the problem comes up when the reason given is: "Nope, Aaron, we just know Chris...".

Mac

I think a better answer would have been, "Who doesn't know Chris Hecker?" If you have been to GDC, you likely know - or know of - Chris (and can usually hear him). If you have done any research into procedural animation, you know Chris and his papers on the subject.

Yeah... his leaving Maxis is a big deal.

Hecker is the Carmack of programmers who care about more than just graphics.. I'm guessing you wouldn't be bitching if Gamasutra ran an article on "John Carmack leaves id". So shut it ;p

I do agree with previous commenters, though, in that 'we know him' is a poor reason to run a story - I apologize for making it sound like that. So let's try this. He's about to keynote the Montreal Games Summit a second time, he co-created the Indie Game Jam, which has been very influential in the rise of indie/game jams over the last few years, and both Joystiq and Kotaku also ran a piece on Chris' departure. (Yes, we know him, but we also know plenty of people and Gamasutra commenters that we would not run a story about. It's not a factor in running stories, it just means we may get to hear about it quicker.)

I wasn't trying to ruffle anyone's feathers above, the article just felt very..."fluffy"?

I, too, work for EA and chuckled at the idea of sending out a press release whenever I leave to pursue other opportunities.

So, no -- no disprespect was intended at all. All the best to Chris and everyone else @ Emeryville that got let go.

Predict fail for Hecker's game.

mike - I shall do no such thing.

Hecker is an amazing person. While I don't expect to see SpyParty hit the store shelves anytime soon, at the very least it will create heated debates on what a video game is and what it can be.

BTW: I hope using that picture is an inside joke. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UTlBvhx0OM&feature=player_embedded

Checker is a very influential and inspirational developer and I would love to see more news stories like this. It is much more important for the industry than a story about a suit moving to a higher paying job.