Back in February, Respawn Entertainment lost two long-time employees; they left separately to pursue other opportunities in the industry. However, Drew McCoy and Jon Shiring are back with their new project – a new AAA studio called Gravity Well.
Today we announced the formation of our new studio, Gravity Well. Founded by Respawn alumni, Jon Shiring and Drew McCoy, we’re looking to build a world-class team of developers to create fun and innovative AAA games. Interested? Submit your resume! https://t.co/XYcSgOiFi8
— Gravity Well (@gravitywell) May 11, 2020
McCoy, having worked in games since 2006, was a Producer at Respawn on both Titanfall games, and an Executive Producer on Apex Legends. Shiring, a 20-year veteran of the industry, knows how to ship a multiplayer game, as he’s worked on the online services for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, Titanfall, and Apex Legends.
On Gravity Well’s website, both Drew and Jon took time to write about the why behind forming the studio, and it’s all about the work culture. From McCoy:
We take team health as an absolute top priority. That means we are anti-crunch. That means good compensation. That means everyone at Gravity Well has creative freedom, because when someone else makes all of the decisions, work isn’t fun and the end product isn’t as good.
From Shiring:
Ask around, and you’ll get the same answer from devs – once your team size crosses 100 people, everything changes. It’s nobody’s fault – big organizations just move slowly. You need meetings just to make decisions. Choices get siloed and brilliant creatives become less creative. So let’s just not do that. We’re going to build a team that is 80-85 people at peak.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the studio is hiring remotely right now for all positions, with plans to staff the studio when Los Angeles is no longer under lockdown.
-Post Link: Ex-Respawn Devs Team Up To Open Gravity Well