Rock Band designer quits Harmonix

Senior designer Dan Teasdale has announced his departure from Harmonix and the end of his involvement with the Rock Band series.

"I came to the realisation recently that my career has been driven by a secret achievement grind, hidden relatively successfully by the fun of making games," Teasdale wrote on his blog.

"I craved the hit of being hands on. It's 100 per cent of your job as a staff designer, but as I became a senior and then a lead on AAA titles with 200+ people on them, the ability to chart the vision and the direction of a title starts to encroach how much time you can spend tweaking the details personally."

So Teasdale decided to leave Harmonix and head instead to Twisted Pixel, where he's about to start work on "a ridiculously cool project".

He wrote, "It's the holy grail of game design positions - I'll get to contribute and help drive the direction of a well funded and supported new title with a close knit superteam, while at the same time being hands on and able to directly impact all aspects of the game."

Teasdale most recent project was Rock Band 3, which he described as being "design complete and on the final path to 0 bugs". The game will be released this autumn.