Last Guardian executive producer resigns

A clearer picture is emerging on the stormy development of The Last Guardian, as the project’s executive producer resigns to join a London Tech City studio.

Yoshifusa Hayama (pictured), who had been Vice President at Sony Computer Entertainment for four years, has been appointed creative director at Newscorp owned Bossa.

Prior to the move Hayama had been executive producer on the protracted Last Guardian project, though Sony had not revealed he had left the company.

Last week it emerged that the PlayStation 3 game’s creative lead, Fumito Ueda, had apparently resigned from Sony and is finishing the project in a freelance capacity.

Sony has employed a company-wide gagging order on publicly discussing Ueda’s employment situation.

Hayama, who has about 14 years of experience in Japanese and UK gaming, has been tasked with directing Bossa as it develops its first 3D social game.

In announcing his new role, he said the future of gaming “is definitely online and thanks to recent developments with Flash 11, there is no reason why a social game can no longer be as visually stunning and as compelling as the big console titles”.

“Together at Bossa we have plans to bring a plethora of games to Facebook and eventually other appropriate social media channels, which include 3D elements and can be enjoyed by all age and interest groups,” he added.

Bossa is owned by media conglomerate News Corporation and its UK entertainment subsidiary, Shine, which is managed by Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth. The group, based in London’s prosperous Tech City hub, recently released its debut social title Monstermind.

That game has already reached 380,000 monthly active users, Bossa said.

“The appointment of Hayama marks a great day in our journey and of social gaming as a whole,” said Bossa executive Henrique Olifiers.

“In Monstermind we have already bought to market a game that breaks the traditional social gaming mould; one that works in real-time and with multiplayer elements. Now we have in-house one of the finest creative minds in the gaming industry, who not only shares our vision for creating ‘anti-social’ games that people love, but will make social games as compelling and visually stunning as their console counterparts.”