Square Enix loses Eidos Montreal founder but gains some feedback

Eidos Montreal founder and general manager, Stephane D’Astous has left the company. After a tweet announcing his departure, D’Astous explained to Develop that his decision was based on his perception of the leadership at his parent company Square Enix Europe.

“Since last year’s financial short-coming performance of Square Enix Europe, we (HQ London and GM Eidos-Montreal) have had growing and divergent opinions on what needed to be done to correct the situation.”

“The lack of leadership, lack of courage and the lack of communication were so evident, that I wasn’t able to conduct my job correctly. I realised that our differences were irreconcilable, and that the best decision was unfortunately to part ways.”

In an interview with Polygon, Stephane D’Astous went on the say that recent changes at Square Enix resulted in strategic planning counter to his thinking. Compounding that difficulty, he felt that SE’s inability to market Eidos Montreal’s games exacerbated the disappointing fiscal results.

Square Enix, D’Astous said, “has some things to learn about how to sell their games.”

“We are in a situation that we have great games that could have sold more,” he said. “They need to attack that very, very seriously. Last year was supposed to be a home-run season, but we didn’t hit a single home run; maybe a double or a triple, but they weren’t home runs.

Despite his feelings for the parent company and the recent reports of troubled development, D’Astous remains confident that the team working on Thief 4 will be able to deliver a game that will be successful and well-recieved.