Panic Button Studio Head Adam Creighton Steps Down, Moving On To Something New

Wish him the best. It would be neat if he ended up at retro just to see how he'll contribute to the company

Nintendo should buy Panic Button

Probably moved to EA, home of incredible talent and a clear vision for gaming.

@jufonuk
Or maybe they'll let Microsoft buy them instead, as they did with Rare.

Oh no! Who will now manage all those brilliant Nintendo Switch ports of triple A games?

Would be cool if he did end up at Retro Studios, though, and the closeness of the two locations is indeed rather typical. And as we all know, there's no such thing as coincidence...

Seems like a stretch to think he’s working at Retro just because it’s based in the same city, but I wouldn’t hate that.

@Baart You joke, but it wouldn’t shock me. How many talented developers have been suckered by the siren call of EA’s deep pockets and false promises?

@Baart EA clearly has talent, but I'd argue about the "clear vision for gaming"

@jufonuk agreed!

@Tibob hell no man panic button should remain their own studio.

wouldn’t surprise me if Retro picked him up. Panic Button clearly knows how to port a shooter to the Switch and get it to run incredibly well. Sounds like Metroid Prime 4, no?

We all wish him good luck, the best games the Switch has, have come thanks to Panic Button.

@jufonuk They were so important to the newfound third party awareness of the system/company. They’re masters of porting and optimizing for the Switch. So I totally agree a closer partnership is in order.

"Interestingly, though, folks on Reddit have started to speculate that he could well end up at Retro Studios, makers of Metroid Prime 4."

Just some journalistic advice, I wouldn't consider "folks on Reddit" as anything credible to make such an assumption — same city, or not.

@jufonuk Makes sense at first but when you think about it, not really.

Panic Button are currently being paid by devs to bring their games to Switch and doing an incredible job of it, without Nintendo needing to pay a penny.

Devs know Switch is popular, they know Panic Button are experts are porting to Switch, so they call them up, allowing games to come to Switch when the original studio doesn't have the resources or manpower to do it themselves, bringing us games we could potentially never have otherwise.

If Nintendo bought Panic Button, they'd have to either keep hiring it out to third party devs in the same way, which would likely change very little about the studios output while increasing Nintendo's risk factor, or use them as their own 2nd party porting studio, which would involve spending even more money to get the rights to the games they wanted to port.

Not to mention some of those third party IP holders might have been capable and willing to do the ports themselves, but would rather let Nintendo take care of it, so now they are paying through the nose for games they would have gotten anyway.

The likelihood if Nintendo bought Panic Button is that they would just started porting Wii U and Wii games to switch before long lmao.

Which could be great but, not better than constantly pumping out high quality third party Switch ports without Nintendo needing to do a thing or spend a penny, like they are now.

probably went to dance ballet or something

Hoping for Retro, yes. But remember there are other gaming companies in Austin like Zenimax Media, Bethesda, Daybreak, etc.

Nintendo Life Detective Pikachu Number 2: He may work for Retro because they are in the same city. And a whole article was made under this assumption!! Nobody to be asked, nobody to confirm. We just write down whatever it comes to our minds and we publish an article.

Such sad news. I hope this doesn’t affect the great things that Panic Button has been doing. I am crossing my fingers for continued Panic Button greatness on Switch!!!