Gordon Hall, one of the founders of Rockstar Leeds, who has been involved in the development of legendary gaming franchises such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, passed away at the age of 51.
Gordon Hall’s two best-known games are the ingenious GTA Chinatown Wars, first made for the Nintendo DS handheld console, then for PSPs and smartphones, and the opening title of the PSP, Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories.
Hall’s video game development career began with the founding of Möbius Entertainment in 1997, which produced various Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles. After working on Max Payne’s GameBoy Advance version, Rockstar Games acquired the studio and renamed it Rockstar Leeds.
Under Hall, the development company worked with other Rockstar teams to create titles such as the aforementioned Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and GTA: Chinatown Wars. Hall was still working at Rockstar in 2009 in San Diego, where he contributed to the development of the great western game, Red Dead Redemption.
He retired from game development for a time between 2011 and 2013, but still didn’t sit on his laurels: he took part in his own research that looked at player psychology and microtransaction strategy, then returned to games as Creative Manager at Activision Blizzard Mobile.
Gordon was simply a brilliant mind, it was great to be around, he was an incredibly motivating and always positive personality
Said his former colleague Martyn Brown, who is currently a business developer at Five Aces Publishing and a former co-founder of Team17.
Many times I saw with my own eyes how he worked with people and how he motivated them to make the most of their abilities, thereby achieving incredible success with his team. He also spent a lot of time helping and encouraging young people, especially students at local universities.
Brown added.
Gordon Hall is mourned by his son, James Hall.
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