An Ion Storm recollection: the short version

Upon hearing that Ion Storm Austin had been shuttered by Eidos Interactive, its owner since 1996, we bolted upright and thought: postmortem, postmortem. But the longer we thought, the less appealing it all felt.

For those who recall studio head Warren Spector trudging from one game show to the next, hauling the 800-pound Deus Ex design document and showing it proudly (well, proudly showing its cover, that is), it was clear the studio's first major game was as much a labor of love as it was a labor of true toil and torment.

On reflection, the lure of a postmortem faded.

Instead, we contacted one of the studio's lead actors and fire starters, Harvey Smith (pictured above). We posed a simple question and offered a small bit of real estate if he chose to respond, which he did. Smith's comments on the closing of Ion Storm follow.

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You asked how I feel about Ion Storm officially closing...

I'm just one person of many who worked for Ion, and I was only associated with the Austin office, which came later. But I spent six incredibly meaningful years there, and I feel like that place, the people, and the games left a great mark on me.

I'm still close to many of my old Ion teammates. (And, in fact, I am working with some of them on a new round of projects with Midway Studios Austin.)

The main thing, I believe, is that video game companies are extremely meaningful to the people who work there. Working on a game is an intense process that always leaves a powerful, lasting impression. It's directly tied to your passion, and it has a tendency to become your life.

To a bunch of the designers and developers in the game industry, this isn't just an industry. Trying to make that great game--like the ones that come along every few years and totally consume us as players, changing our lives in ways that nongamers don't understand--is more like a spiritual quest.

Ion was a place like that, and I think we will all carry that forward.

I feel like the story continues, at many different studios...

(After interviewing with Warren Spector in 1997, Smith was hired on to the Ion Storm team first as design team lead, advancing to become lead designer, and later, project director. Smith left the studio in March 2004. After a hiatus from the industry, he joined the new Midway Austin operation just three months ago, as studio creative director.)