Brian Reynolds leaving Zynga for..

[sisko]

Another report of a high-profile loss for Zynga: This time it is confirming that chief game designer Brian Reynolds has resigned.
In a statement, Zynga’s President of Games Steve Chiang confirmed the departure:
“Brian has a long history in the game industry and has been a great partner to the creative leaders at Zynga. I want to thank him for his leadership of the Zynga Baltimore studio in the design and development of FrontierVille, which brought many innovations to social gaming. We appreciate Brian’s contribution and we’re proud of the deep bench of creative leaders who are leading the next wave of game innovation at Zynga. We wish Brian the best in his next chapter.”
Reynold’s departure, which was first reported by Polygon, is particularly noteworthy since he was one of Zynga’s top gaming veterans.
When Reynolds joined Zynga nearly four years ago, he gave the company credibility in the gaming world — if someone who was known for being the lead designer on the hit Civilization II would join Zynga, then maybe building casual games on Facebook was a legitimate business.
Since joining Zynga, his work has included creating FrontierVille and CityVille 2. He also assisted with the launch of FarmVille 2 and ChefVille.
But the company’s creative team has undergone a lot of changes over the past few months.
When Chief Creative Officer Mike Verdu left in August, Reynolds was one of the game leaders who was expected to step up to fill his shoes, along with Tim LeTourneau and Bill Jackson. In November, Zynga promoted LeTourneau to replace Verdu.
With all the departures, the company is essentially playing a game of musical chairs, plugging each hole with talent from another part of the company when someone leaves. While it has had the depth to do that so far, the worry is that at some point its ranks will wear thin.
Reynolds has not said what he is doing next, but using the Twitter handle @ZyngaGameChief, he confirmed his departure: “Yes I’m officially leaving Zynga after 3 3/4 great years. Back soon… need to think of a new Twitter handle though!”
Shortly after, he updated his Twitter handle to @TheGameChief.
To be sure, the company’s stock price has not helped with retention.
Until recently, shares were trading around $2.40 a share, or about 80 percent below the company’s public offering. On Monday, shares soared 14 percent in anticipation of Facebook’s fourth-quarter earnings this afternoon. Today, shares are trading a little lower at $2.57 a share.

(Source)

I don't think he's taking a sabbatical, so the main question for us is:
What will be his next game?

[Dale]

Hmmm..... my mind is in thinking mode........

Late last year, a number of long-term Civ staff left Firaxis....... and now BR.  New company?  New 4x TBS?

[BFG]

Who's Sid working for nowadays?

[Dale]

Who's Sid working for nowadays?

He hasn't moved.  Firaxis/2K.  Personally, I wouldn't want Sid to design the next Civ anyways.  He's more interested in casual social gaming now.  Take a look at his last two games: CivRev and CivWorld.

[BFG]

He hasn't moved.  Firaxis/2K.  Personally, I wouldn't want Sid to design the next Civ anyways.  He's more interested in casual social gaming now.  Take a look at his last two games: CivRev and CivWorld.

Good point.  Though I wouldn't mind if it were a joint project which included both he and Brian.  I also wouldn't mind seeing some of the people who worked on Civ 2 & 3 join back in.

[Green1]

Somehow, I could see this happening.

The Zynga games may be popular with the office workers and nurses sitting back on facebook, but most of those games seem very hallow to the hobbyist gamer. I would think they would be hallow to someone like Reynolds who has had a history of developing deep niche games, too. Position and money is not everything.

....or there might be something else going on here....

[BFG]

...seem very hallow to the hobbyist gamer...

Personally, I don't consider Zynga's games to be particularly holy 

[Green1]

...seem very hallow to the hobbyist gamer...

Personally, I don't consider Zynga's games to be particularly holy 

grrrr... damn me and my hilarious mispellings! Hollow....

If anything, FB games are blasphemy. We need to make him perform 200 hail Sids in front of a statue of SSI boxes to atone.

[BFG]

If anything, FB games are blasphemy. We need to make him perform 200 hail Sids in front of a statue of SSI boxes to atone.

Agreed!  But we'll give him a free pass if he agrees to make SMAC2.
You know, now that I think about it, BRAC is a nice acronym for a new game...

[sisko]

new development:

Zynga's former chief designer wants to pursue projects that would be too risky or "off strategy" for FarmVille maker

Given the exodus of talent from Zynga in the last year, one might think chief game designer Brian Reynolds jumped ship this week to pursue something more stable. But in a guest column on VentureBeat today, the newly indie developer insisted it was just the opposite.

"I want to experiment more than might be appropriate for a publicly traded company, and I might want to do something that would be 'off strategy' for Zynga or otherwise too risky," Reynolds explained.

While Reynolds said he needed time to settle on a specific course of action, he is leaning toward starting up a new small studio. He added that he missed the stress and excitement of running a smaller outfit, and getting to write his own code for games.

The veteran designer also suggested that tablets and mobiles might be a good place to take advantage of his experience, given the success that has been found on those platforms with strategy and free-to-play games. Reynolds has deep roots in the former from his time at Firaxis and Big Huge Games, while the latter was the focus of his work at Zynga.

[sisko]

the full interview here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/brian-reynolds-on-zynga-games-and-the-future/

SMAC is mentioned in there, but not in the way we are hoping. If you don't have the time to read everything, just skip to this paragraph:

But after almost four years (and longer than I was ever at Firaxis, if you can believe it!), I’m ready to shift into a different gear. I miss getting to write code personally and make fun “with my own hands.” And suddenly, the tablet and mobile world look like they might be on the verge of a strategy games renaissance – hey, I used to be good at making those! – and free-to-play is leading the way. Not that Zynga isn’t willing and even eager to have me do that, but I even miss, in a funny way, the day to day panics of being somewhere small and new and vulnerable, and the excitement of owning a small company. I want to experiment more than might be appropriate for a publicly traded company, and I might want to do something that would be “off strategy” for Zynga or otherwise too risky.
So I’m getting that itch, and though I need some time to think about exactly what I want to do next. I suspect that “starting a little studio with a few wingmen” — for the fourth time in my career — is likely to be on the menu.