The timing is very suspicious. I mean who leaves after a successful game launch?

Considering RotTR sales on xbox, I would say him leaving is directly related.

Its a shame though since the scores are pretty damn good. Whats going on in the xbox side, don't they like good 3rd person action/adventure games or do they all play Halo and Fallout?

Hope he will stay in the gaming business despite all the negativity towards the exclusive nature of ROTR.

@UltraNova: Hideo Kojima. :)

@LordMaim

Oh that's an entirely different bag of beans my friend.

In Kojima's case we've seen hateful acts from Konami yet we've seen nothing of that sort in Darrell Gallagher's case.

Oh and for the record, MGSV received great scores AND sold well (and it was multiplatoform).

Typically to have an executive leave so abruptly indicates that he is stepping down or "asked" to resign.

This move makes me think the tomb raider deal with msft may have been engineered Darrell and he is essientially falling on his sword.
Would be interesting to see where he lands - perhaps microsoft?

@abzdiine "Sales were way below what they predicted. "

what did they predict?

@Blaze929
For a multi million dollar budget definitely not 300,000 first week sales that's for damn sure.

Timing would be typical. Many execs wait until after a game is released before leaving. He probably has some other place he wants to go work, and just held out until the game shipped.

I had long wondered if CD had gotten paid at all or if it was just Square.

If it was the former then Square Enix has conclusively sabotaged CD and in the same move caused extreme damage to the Tomb Raider franchise.

They probably got paid during production, and then at certain milestones including final delivery. Updates and such would be paid as well. Any bonuses paid would be tied to game sales, and those different quotas for the pay outs would depend on the game itself. Typically they're tied into what the publisher expects to sell overall.

I don't think they've left CD out to dry just yet. There's just a change in management. SE could easily just shut down the studio, or sell them off, and cut their losses if they were not wanting CD around anymore, or had no intention of using them in the future.

The timed exclusive may have been responsible for poor sales, but the release date was also crazy. I bought tomb raider day 1, but I still havnt opened the box. Why? Well fallout 4,halo, Star Wars etc. they should have released it at a time that would allow people to get caught up in the hype. I.e. Not with fallout 4 and halo. Every review I saw saying how great it is were quickly pushed off the headlines by other games.

I'm pretty sure they'd prefer bigger profits, despite whichever company they like the most. Companies go where the popularity, ie money is, game developers move around a lot too, it's the nature of the business
@below, who holds the most power? Developer or publisher? I'd go with publisher!

The publisher (Square-Enix) would want the bigger profits, but the developer (Crystal Dynamics) would definitely benefit more from the exposure and developmental assistance from being exclusive, even if it's only timed.

@IIFloodyII

"Because they prefer working on Xbox"

Im sorry but this is the silliest thing i have seen posted in a while.

@Hoohaarr

Clearly not, considering it's an Xbox timed exclusive.

Again CD clearly prefer working on the Xbox platform (look up who did the PS or PC versions of their games, if you don't believe me), Square aren't the smartest, MS wanted their Uncharted 4 competitor for the Holidays and Square would prefer dodging it. On paper it probably sounded like a good deal for them, in reality it wasn't, so if the rumors of CD pushing for the deal are true, it wouldn't be too crazy of Square to blame him for their mistake.

Do I think it'd be the only reason he left? No, he also most likely wanted to move on, but I wouldn't put it past Square to blame him.

@Utalkin2me

Good for you I guess, but if looking up who ported their games to other platforms is too hard for you, a lot of things must seem silly to you.

I doubt CD pushed the exclusivity deal.

Well, as I said, I haven't played the 2nd, so I can only base my opinions from the first. Sounds like they improved on some things, but I never considered the progression tree of the first to be that exhilerating. That kind of progression never really impressed me, although it gave the user more control. TLOU used something similar, and I wasn't all into it, just made some things easier, and of course made it very much worth exploring.

Otherwise, I have heard the exploration aspect has been greatly improved with the new game, and I look forward to seeing it, but an immense backlog along with my game room being a storehouse for a lot of my furniture for an ongoing home remodel has made it more difficult to get around to the newer stuff.

I got the first TR as PS+ gave it to me but I couldn't get into it. I might try again but then again why should I? There are way more games out there than I have time for anyway so why should I force myself?

I tried again to finish off the first boss in Old hunters DLC but still couldn't and decided to level up some more playing the main campaign on newgame+. I almost finished off the three bosses in forbidden woods on my second try. Now I remember how to kill them so tonight once I put our youngest to sleep those three will be finished.

Why am I talking about Bloodborne all the time? I have no idea. I think that game is jus THAT GOOD I can't stop talking about it.

Edit: Holy offtopic Batman someone has gone crazy marking all these comments for offtopic or trolling and when you read them anyway they are just normal comments most of them. Why would anyone do that?