Ubisoft Montreal's Clint Hocking Resigns

Ubisoft's creative director Clint Hocking, who's shipped games including Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, announced that he's leaving the company after spending nine years with its Montreal studio. Hocking did not specify whether he already has plans to join another developer or whether he intends to continue working in the game industry, but he expressed a need to avoid the bad habits that he believes are inevitable whenever he finds himself comfortable and content with his station in life. "In the 451 weeks that I have been here, I have adopted many new habits," Hocking explains in a post on his personal blog. "It has taken tremendous effort to prevent those habits from atrophying into bad ones. Pride burns into hubris. Willingness wilts into desperation. Confidence slows to stubbornness. Passion boils into anger." He adds, "Each of these faults and others – without care and constant self-examination – risk becoming habits. I am too comfortable. I am too content. And I know where that can lead for me. Fortunately, for the first time in my life, I know the way forward." Though the creative director has shipped only three titles during his nine years at the company, he points out that those releases have sold a total of more than 12 million copies and have each received an average Metacritic score of over 90 percent. "I’ve been very lucky to say the least," he admits.