Rockstar Vice President Quits After 20 Years

Vice President of Product Development for Rockstar Games, Jeronimo Barrera, has left the company after 20 years of shipping games. The industry veteran told Variety that it was time to open a new chapter in his career, following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2.

Barrera started when Rockstar was made up of only five people, which eventually turned into over two thousand across five studios. His job was to oversee the team and make sure they were on track. He had this to say about his job at Rockstar:

My job entailed basically steering the ship in the right direction. With a studio team that maxed out at two thousand plus, just trying to keep the direction of all of this stuff heading in the right direction was pretty much my job. I thought it was the best decision ever to get everybody on board to centralize the technology and the pipelines. It was a natural move and we were making sure that we had all of our best efforts making the best game possible. Not needing to reinvent the wheel every time.

If I had stayed at Rockstar it would have been more GTAs, more RDRs and less of this other stuff going on out there right now.

The “other stuff” is in reference to technology like AR and VR, which he thinks are “cool.” Perhaps Barrera will continue a career in technology, but aimed more towards virtual reality. Currently, he’s not sure what he wants to do, but he wants to be involved with making “this artistry progressive,” which he felt like he was unable to do if he continued at Rockstar.

This notion is interesting, because many consider Rockstar to be the pioneer of games, leading the way open world video games are viewed. To Barrera’s point, Rockstar knows what sells and is good at what it does, but you probably won’t see the sort of things he wants to be involved with any time soon.

Barrera was involved with many projects and his work at the company over the last 20 years deserves praise. Wish Barrera the best on his new journey.

[Source: Variety]