Naughty Dog president Neil Druckmann doesn't think he will be in the business of making video games forever, at least not at the scale we would expect from the storied creative. He is best known for his work on both Uncharted and The Last of Us; in fact, it was the experience of adapting the latter for HBO, something he "really enjoyed", along with moving into a stage of life where "your kids are number one", which prompted thoughts of a sea change.
Druckmann's contemplations were recorded for posterity in an interview with rapper Logic on his YouTube show, Logically Thinking (thanks VGC), where he reflected: "I guess that I don't see myself doing this forever at this scale". Discussing how valuable quality time with one's children is, the topic struck a chord with the Naughty Dog boss, and the conversation turned pensive:
"You were talking about how you're entering this new phase in your life, where your kids are number one, and I'm in a similar place where my kids are number one... I know that time is limited, so it's very precious to me, and I don't want to waste it when they do want to spend time with me, and that's number one. I'm just at a point in my life where it's like, you start looking at, 'what's the end game here? When is it time to call it?'"
By "call it", we presume Druckmann means retiring from AAA game development and studio management, escaping the insane amount of anxiety that goes along with something like that, which he says "takes a lot out of you. It's very stressful to manage that many people and multiple studios worldwide."
He'd still need somewhere to channel all that creativity, however, and wouldn't be the first to be seduced by Hollywood's siren song: "I could see myself transitioning to something that's like more low-key, and lower stressed, that still allows me to have this creative outlet. But you know, I've started thinking about how many more of these games I have in me, and it's not that many."