Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Studios has revealed the hiring of a new CEO in Shams Jorjani so the former lead Johan Pilestedt — who you've probably seen on Twitter recently — can focus his efforts on game creation again. After the overwhelming success of the PS5, PC title, which currently sits on more than 12 million copies sold, Pilestedt says in a GamesIndustry.biz article that he's found himself "pulled more towards the business side of things".
As a result, he couldn't "focus as much on the creative side. That made me realise I needed to make some decisions, both for the success of the business but also myself." Following a lunch with new CEO Shams Jorjani, he explained he needed to follow his heart and take on the role of chief creative officer instead, allowing him to return to game development within Arrowhead Studios. "It’s not only right for me, but it’s also right for the organisation. Having a reluctant CEO is not something that will turn out that well, I think."
Shams Jorjani previous worked for Paradox Interactive, where he held a few different senior roles and helped bring titles like Crusader Kings III and Cities: Skyline to market. He said: "What I’ll be bringing to the table is organisation and leadership. What I did at Paradox, where I joined as the 23rd person and then helped grow the company into the behemoth it was… it was about organisation, leadership and business focus. It’s a lot of the, frankly, boring business administration stuff that is a necessary part of running a company, which is hard to do when you’re also juggling the chairman’s hat and the creative director’s hat and also being the one who is in the trenches doing a lot of the designing that Johan has been doing over the years."
Pilestedt also broke the news on Twitter, where he said he'll "spend MORE time with the team and 100% of my focus on the games and community". From new CEO Shams Jorjani, the thinking behind the change in leadership is this: "How do we enable Johan to make more Helldivers, and what I bring is a structure around that."
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 12
Its a shame how much the player base has decreased from the drama a week ago. I think when they announce the next enemy faction the base will go back up. I see a couple other ways that the base will increase over time, when helldivers 2 goes into plus, when it inevitably goes ftp, and when it gets ported to possible mobile in the Future
It's nice that the lead was able to return to what he likes to do. Not everyone has the "CEO brain" and would rather do anything else other than handling the business aspect.
Seems like a sensible move that pleases both parties. Smart decision. Rare to see someone step "down"/sideways from CEO back to a more creative role while remaining at the same company. Kudos
Congratulations to Arrowhead.
@Americansamurai1
You see a lot of things that don't make sense.
@The_Wailing_Doom ?
@Americansamurai1
They would have to completely revamp the business model of the game to support it going to free-to-play because the monetization in the game is not egregious and certainly cannot support the game itself. I can see the game coming to PS+ eventually, years from now, but porting the game to mobile is wild. I can't see that happening.
@The_Wailing_Doom it wouldn't be the first time a premium game went free to play. Once the sales dry up, it will go to plus first and than eventually ftp. Screenshot this post cause it's going to happen.
@Americansamurai1
I suppose you could be right. I just hope they don't start doing stupid things like sell $20 weapons or armor sets to support the game being free-to-play. The monetization currently is quite generous.
@The_Wailing_Doom yeah me either, just stick with the war bonds, but hope they stop nerfing everything. I can see premium things with future crossovers like a killzone armor or something, hopefully not super expensive like fortnite..only time will tell.
Fingers crossed democratically, I'm in love with the game! Sends greatest ME3 online vibes with my guys back in the day! Go Arrowhead, you can do it!
He's stepped down to take over because the ones who did the patches have screwed up big time with weapons and enemies balancing. They nerfed the guns to every current war bond released 2 weeks after and then, Joel seems to be just doing the same defend missions on the same planets and it's getting very dull
Because of these setbacks it means new strategems potentially have slowed down and when they did release new ones they were broken. The air burst rocket would instantly kill you if anything was near you it's hit box was brokenn
L
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