I’m hestitating a bit posting any news from Chaim’s latest game (not that I don’t care, I do – but he’s no longer with EA/Maxis) but considering it does have some minor discussion with his past game, Spore, I’d figure I would post about it.

After you left Spore, what did you end up doing, and why did you decide to start making independent games?

After I left Spore, I traveled around the world for a bit, ate a bunch of Masala Dosas, and then returned to Berkeley to start making games. Why did I decide to go the independent route? If you’re at a big publisher the chance that you get to make a game you want to make is basically zero. And even if you are Will Wright, you still have to fight hard.

When I left, there was some discussion of me starting my own project, but I realized two things. First, I don’t have Will’s Jedi powers of persuasion, so forget it. Whatever I made would probably get thrown way off course. And second, why should I make something for someone else? There are designers that require a large development team to make things, but since I can code, I don’t need that. This kind of thinking does have some negative side effects, though…

continue on…