Sort of an uncalled for statement, Sensei. What, exactly, did I do to make you feel this way about me? I haven't judged you to be quick on the flametrigger before. Does it actually anger you that I pointed out the inconsistencies in another person's logic?
I'll say it again: Soren Johnson is a man with an impressive resumé, and it confuses me that both him
and Brian Reynolds (designer of fan favourite Alpha Centauri) have taken up roles at Zynga. Whether or not Soren Johnson was being paid unfairly by EA is irrelevant.
Judging by some of his past work, Johnson was a high-level member of one of EA's design teams, apparently placed on "social gaming" oriented products.
What disturbs me even more is that Reynolds, the "Chief Game Designer" at Zynga, is responsible for
Frontierville and
Pioneer Trail, the latter of which was an
opaque attempt to bypass The Learning Company's IP rights on Oregon Trail.The guys operating over at Zynga are guys that a lot of us hero-worshipped when we were youths. We can't deny this, because our posts where we heap praise on them still exist on this forum. Why have our role models, whose work we now look back to as some of the best in the industry's history, forsaken the values they used to operate on? What does it mean for the future of the industry that our greatest minds are now working for one of our worst companies?