The Chinese Room’s Jessica Curry has announced she is no longer going to work on games development at the company outside of music. Instead, she will focus on her own projects.
In a post on the company blog, Curry provided a number of reasons for stepping away from day-to-day operation, with the largest reason pertaining to a degenerative illness; however, she also notes problems with publishers and not receiving proper credit for her contribution to the company as contributing factors.
She sited issues with Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture publisher Sony Computer Entertainment, describing it as a “toxic relationship” and how the way the studio was treated made her shake her head “with disbelief.”
Curry also discussed the indignities she experienced at the hands of the media, who assumed she was Dan Pinchbeck’s (her husband) personal assistant, not being referred to as co-studio head, and watching as Pinchbeck was given all the credit.
“Partly it was my fault,” she said. “I don’t like doing talks, Dan loves them and he naturally became the public face of the studio. People assumed that he was the creative force behind the company and I didn’t want to seem like an egotist so I let them carry on thinking that.
“Last year I had a beautiful idea for Rapture. Dan went to LA and while he was there he told Sony about it. When he returned I said “what did they think of my idea?” He admitted that he’d ascribed the idea to one of our team members, not me.
“He was genuinely bewildered by my anger and asked “but why does it matter who gets the credit?” My reply: “It only doesn’t matter who gets the credit when you’re the person who always gets the credit!” I’ve realized that the only way I’m going to get credit for the work that I do is if I take a step away from Dan.
“This is not a rejection of him but of the society that still can’t cope with the fact that a woman might just be as talented as the man she shares her life with.”
Curry said she is still a company director at The Chinese Room, and since she still has an office at the studio she will continue to interact with both her husband and members of staff. She still plans to write music for the games, but other than that, she is going to “go it alone” and see where it takes her.
“I’m about to embark on a large-scale music project with Carol Ann Duffy, our wonderful Poet Laureate and if you’d like me to write some music for you then please do get in touch,” she added. “I may well find that my travels lead me back to the company sometime in the future; we’ll see.
“But in the meantime I want to spread my wings and see where the next adventures lie.”
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture was released on PS4 August 11.
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