The lights are on
Naughty Dog has released a statement on the departure of Uncharted's Amy Henning, denying reports that she had been forced out by Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann.
Here is the statement in full:
Earlier this week we had to confirm the regrettable news that Amy Hennig has left Naughty Dog. She will be missed and, as we stated before, we appreciate the significant contributions that she has made to Naughty Dog and the industry in general. We wish her the best.
However, we feel it necessary to clear up a very important point that was unprofessionally misreported when the story broke. Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann were NOT involved in what transpired. It was very upsetting to us that dozens of stories were run, linking back to the same hurtful accusations in the original report. As co-presidents of Naughty Dog, we are responsible for all studio affairs.
Normally, we wouldn’t respond to rumors and speculation on matters that are internal to Naughty Dog, but because the personal reputation of two of our employees is being damaged we needed to set the record straight. There is nothing left to be said on this subject. Now we’re going back to what we should be focused on – making games. – Evan Wells and Chrisophe Balestra
The refutes earlier report from IGN, which claimed that Straley and Druckmann were behind Hennig's departure.
[Note: Naughty Dog's site appears to be having problems right now, but I did get the page to load and the above text was directly copied from it, without editing]
Source: Naughty Dog
Our Take:I'm glad Naughty Dog has decided to speak out on the matter. However, I do want to clarify how Game Informer went about covering this. We, like everyone else, saw the news break on IGN. We contacted a Sony representative and confirmed that Amy had indeed left, something she later confirmed herself on Twitter. We ran the story and did include this paragraph which included the allegation from IGN as an unconfirmed report: "Unconfirmed reports from IGN say according to "numerous trusted sources," Hennig was "forced out" of Naughty Dog by The Last of Us directors Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, and that the two will take over development on Uncharted 4."
At that point, we reached out to both Evan Wells and Amy Hennig herself via email and Twitter regarding the report that Straley and Druckmann had forced her ouster. We did not receive responses from either Wells or Hennig, until the statement from Wells and co-head Chrisophe Balestra was posted this evening. I wanted to be clear to our readers that we did pursue all information that we could get on this.
If it's coming from IGN - it's probably wrong. Don't people realize this yet?
I'm glad everything was cleared up. I'm still saddened by her departure though.
Well it is IGN.
Doesn't mean it still can't be true though.
Smell bs
This does smell a bit like a cover-up. That is very dismissive and defensive.
They forced her out. Of course they did. If not, they wouldn't have said anything about it at all, because how many game developers REALLY care how the blogosphere interprets their professional actions?
But, if you just let two men run one of the most well-known women in this industry out of your company, then I think you attempt some damage control by lying about it. Because being perceived as a sexist can ACTUALLY hurt your business, as it should. I think they ran her out. This is unconfirmed.
And I read IGN, with their clear PS bias, to counterbalance the equally clear Microsoft bias that GI has. (I own and use a PC to game, so it's six of one and a half dozen of the other for me.)
But these folks are barely journalists. Reading ANYTHING on ANY of these websites and then getting angry when it turns out there were inconsistencies is sorta like paying someone to punch you in the face and then being really angry about the black eye.
That's what you get.
Bottom Line
Naughty Dog lost a very important asset (Amy Hennig)
We dont know why Amy Henning left.
Only rumors exist so far.
Game Informer posted a rumor that they warned us beforehand.
Naughty Dog dispelled a rumor that it was believable enough to destroy their PR.
Unless Amy Hennig decides to tell something, we cant do anything.
I dont get why (some) people have gone fanatic mode.