The games industry is mourning an icon today as Gordon Hall, co-founder of Rockstar Games’ Leeds studio, has passed away.
Hall created Möbius Entertainment Limited in 1997, alongside Jason McGann, Dave Box, and Ian J. Bowden. The company made Game Boy Colour, Game Boy Advance, and PlayStation games including Alfred’s Adventure, Titanium Angels, and Army Men: Turf Wars; until being enlisted to develop a GBA adaptation of Max Payne in 2003. Mobius was acquired by Take-Two Interactive in 2004 and rebranded as Rockstar Leeds. With this new moniker, they continued to port several key Rockstar franchises, like Grand Theft Auto and L.A. Noire, or co-develop games alongside their sister studios.
Hall served as producer for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars in 2009, and is credited as Studio President for many of Rockstar Leeds’ biggest games—the studio’s most recent release being Red Dead Redemption 2—until in 2018. until August 2012, fwhen Hall announced that he would be leaving the company for Activision’s mobile-focused The Blast Furnace studio.
Hall became Chief Creative Cfficer for Activision-Blizzard Mobile, a division which led the company to $1.2 million in microtransactions in Q3 2020. He took the post in 2013, in the wake of the company’s split from Vivendi, after a brief sabbatical “to further research player psychology and microtransactions strategy.”
His friend Martyn Brown of Five Acres Publishing told the BBC, “Gordon was simply brilliant to be around, incredibly motivating and ever positive. I saw many times first-hand how he worked with people and lifted their capabilities above and beyond, driving his team, project and company to unbelievable heights of success.”
Brown continued by saying,”he was an incredibly generous soul who spent a lot of time encouraging all, especially students at local universities.”
Gordon Hall is survived by his son James, Games Industry reports.
