Wingman leaves CIG?

[OldBloke]

Will be announced soon apparently.

The mods closed it because they said it was speculation...but it's not. Wingman left the CIG about a Week and half ago, he was at the last Star Citizen meetup in Austin and told us he sent CIG in LA letter of resignation from the company due to reasons I will not disclose, but I can say he will be on Michael Morlan's show this week I believe to make the official announcement. They where suppose to realease this information at CitizenCon but they did not...probably to keep it quiet as long as possible because of the backlash it might cause.

Chris Olivia has left already it seems.

[Gorion]

Quoting:

"Jeebuz, people. Since the ship pipe got moved to LA, he was asked to move to. He has his family is Austin, so he declined (left the company).
Stop being so dramatic."

Source

[AndyBee]

Ouch... i thought Eric was literally CR's "Wingman" ? old friends & old and trusted colleagues, i doubt we'll ever know the full story...

[TeaLeaf]

Chris Olivia was announced a long time back, no surprise there and no huge loss, he's doing other stuff more aligned with what he wants to do.

It's unsurprising that in a 300 person company people leave (for various reasons).

[AndyBee]

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/189154/my-death-has-been-exaggerated#latest

:-)

[Justin Tolerable]

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/189154/my-death-has-been-exaggerated#latest

:-)

Oh thank GOD for that.  Good old Wingman.  He was only just in the Den a couple of days ago telling me that he was planning to 'welch' on his promise for a bagel carrier.  Maybe Reddit decided that was his letter of resignation.

[OldBloke]

Gone this time. Not sure I fully believe the reasons stated for his decision but, in any case, his leaving is a huge loss to the game as far as I'm concerned.

There have been a lot of rumors going around about me lately, as it seems you can’t fly a ship in the verse without someone floating a new “Where’s Wingman” conspiracy theory. I have had a good time following along with some of those, many of them very inventive, but that is not why I am here talking with everyone today.

When Chris, myself and a few others sat down to discuss Star Citizen there was a plan of having the bulk of the team in Austin and a strike team in LA. However, it became quite the burden on Chris to travel back and forth to Austin every month, especially when we grew our plans and added extra studios and people. Frankly, it became an impossible task for Chris to manage his time and all the studios efficiently. So it was decided that for the good of the project we would need to consolidate the senior leads around Chris in the LA office.

Which brings us to here. The situation was pretty obvious, my position would need to be in the LA office.

Now, this is not a simple decision for me. I love this game, and I love all of you as you have made Star Citizen what it is to date, you are like my second family, a community that feels as passionately about this game as I do and that is a wonderful thing, for which I am truly grateful. However, my family (Hotwing, SixWing and Winglet) are rooted in Austin and they are clearly my top priority in any major decision. So, as I pondered the choice it became increasingly clear that the right one was for me to step aside from my role at CIG.

I have enjoyed more than anything being part of this adventure, from the early days of the campaign to doing Wingman’s hangar live in the basement to watching our team and the game grow with the passion of all the Citizens. Truly a mind blowing adventure, and one I have been proud to have been a small part of, but now I must be taking up my new role as cheerleader and dedicated (Golden ticket holding â€" oh yeah baby) backer.

I will still be around in the forums and in the chat roll with my fellow chatrollians â€" I will be right there alongside everyone else flying our ships, and enjoying the ride as Star Citizen and Squadron 42 continue to change the world of development.

I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me along the way. I have had the best time of my life meeting folks at events, in coffee shops, biergartens, conferences, airports, heck all over really â€" if you happen to see me somewhere, please stop by to say hello, as it is a thrill every time I get to meet other Citizens in person and share stories, or anecdotes about development, the game or (REDACTED). And I will still pop into some events when I have some time.

And, if you want to see what I am up to next, please come join my new forums at: http://peezocker.com/ A temporary name for sure. I will be livestreaming this Thursday at 10am central to talk about what we want to do next.

So, before I start to cry, there is really only one things left to say…..

See you all “in the verse”

Eric “Wingman” Peterson

[TeaLeaf]

Much as it is a shame he is not part of the CIG team any more, I'm not sure it changes anything.  The re-structure to LA was clear some time ago, as was Eric's reluctance to make the move, so it was inevitable and the post only confirms what we knew & suspected for a long time.   When the ship pipeline was re-structured & moved out of Austin, it was inevitable.

[Justin Tolerable]

Agreed.  Personnel changes in a company this big are pretty routine.  Especially when there has been so much unexpected change to the scope of the project.  I wish him the best.

He's created a new forum for his new (as yet un-named) studio here:

http://peezocker.com/forum/

[albert]

I think this is a little different because most company execs are pretty invisible to the customers. The guys in charge at CIG are Demi-Celebs. I think bad PR can prevent even a good product from being a success but can make a sucky product sell.

How popular a guys was he? I'm not too integrated to know his contribution so far.

[OldBloke]

... How popular a guy was he?

He was, IMHO, the face of CIG's interaction with their fans. The show he fronted (Wingman's Hangar) was, after a shaky start, something most fans looked forward to every week. I really enjoyed his wit and style of delivery. However, none of this front-of-house popularity meant he was necessarily a good manager.

[TeaLeaf]

Now that is true, he did have a way better relationship with the fans!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Twyst]

He was, IMHO, the face of CIG's interaction with their fans.

With a few obvious exceptions, I feel the that the various faces of CIG really gel with the community and I find an instant rapport with them.
Take the "10 for the writers" broadcast recently. Totally new faces, but they carried it well. I ended with looking forwards to another bout of them if CR isn't available.

This is an area where they are rich, and they exploit it with their shows. In computer terms, Chris Roberts is playing Freddie Mercury and CIG are Queen, the venue is $games_con / Live Aid.
I see Wingman in the Marty Di Bergi role. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Spinal_Tap if you don't follow)

So I don't see Wingman leaving affecting the game itself any from what we know.

Whilst typing this out, it suddenly struck me that Elite:Dangerous, whilst technically a good game, has none of the pezazz CIG as whole offer.
While I equated the Dread Pirate Roberts with one Mr F Mercury and the various faces of CIG (in this I include the sub studios such as Foundry 42, Ilfonic, etc) as the band members, every Elite piece I've seen is fronted by Beiber. I mean Brabben
And he isn't as good on media as CR is. Or, as Wingman is. As both enterprises are predominantly crowd funded this becomes an important point -how much of your backing is in the persona vs the vision?

[albert]

Vision is certainly a strong motivator for sure. In the case of CR vs DB is it the Show Pony vs the Work Horse and the latter has no time to play Freddie because he has a game to deliver this year. He did get the attention of The (other) Queen ;-) (OBE).

I think it's also like comparing US TV vs UK TV. The US (SC) demand a bit of reality entertainment with their game whilst the Brits don't want any crap just the thing they came along for (Elite). The Elite development has had major fan involvement and it feels closer and more personal to me. Look at Arithon, he writes to them offering support and he is given the job of a rep at EGX! How cool is that?