Videogames have had a significant impact on many gamers' lives, and it is always a shame when prominent figures from behind the scenes die too soon, just as one of the music composers for Halo died unexpectedly last month.
Today, Gordon Hall, one of the founders of Rockstar Leeds, tragically died at the age of 51. As stated by the Yorkshire development scene located in England, there is no explicit cause of death to be released to the public at this time.
As a developer, Hall was responsible for co-developing many games, such as GTA Chinatown Wars and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. Hall also helped port numerous handheld Rockstar titles while he acted as president. In addition, Hall also supported the development of the first Red Dead Redemption game at Rockstar in its San Diego studio back in 2009.
Gordon Hall began his gaming industry career in 1997 when he formed Möbius Entertainment. Hall worked on an assortment of Game Boy Advance titles, such as the Max Payne video game. Take-Two interactive would later recognize his company's efforts and rebrand it as "Rockstar Leeds" in 2004. Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser stated that the company's impressive work on Max Payne was what inspired them to bring them on board. Then, in both 2011 and 2013, Hall took a break from the industry to do research on player psychology towards microtransaction strategies.
Martyn Brown, a friend of Hall's and co-founder of Team17, goes on to say the Hall was one of the most positive and brilliant people around. Brown compliments Hall on his pursuit of excellence and capabilities to form close bonds with his hard-working co-workers. As a close friend of Hall, Brown said he will always remember him to be one who could always entertain others at a moment's notice. He ended his statement by saying that Hall was truly inspirational and will be very sadly missed.
Later on in his career, Hall lent his talents to projects like L.A. Noire and Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis, up until his resignation in 2011. From there, Hall joined Activision Blizzard mobile as a chief creative officer. From a public statement to IGN from a Rockstar Games spokesperson, Hall was important for making truly classic games during his time at the company. Clearly, Many of the titles that Halls worked on will leave a significant impact on the gaming industry, and his essence will always be remembered by fans in his work. Gordon Hall is survived by his son James.
Source: Gamesindustry.biz