10 Video Games That Made Their Creators Leave The Industry

Lorne Lanning is best known as the creator of the Oddworld franchise, which began of course with the release of the iconic Abe's Oddysee.

Despite the general critical success of the series, Lanning began to fall out of love with the industry as a whole following the cataclysmic commercial failure of Stranger's Wrath in 2005, which sold fewer than half the units it needed in order to break even.

Lanning blamed publisher EA for "sabotaging" the game with their poor marketing and parted ways with them the very same year. However, without the backing of a major label, Lanning was also forced to close his development team, Oddworld Inhabitants.

In addition to shuttering all planned future projects, Lanning declared he was leaving the games industry, later saying, "I don't care for some of these relationships, I think they're very unfair. And I don't think they're good for the industry, the development community, or the customer. And if that's how it's gonna be I'd rather not play, period."

Lanning explored a number of different media enterprises in the years that followed, including short film production, before Oddworld Inhabitants re-emerged in 2010 to publish an Abe's Odyssey remake, New 'n' Tasty!, which was developed by Just Add Water and eventually released in 2014.

Though Lanning's company will also be publishing the upcoming Oddworld: Soulstorm, he nevertheless remains disconnected from active games development, having neither written nor directed a new video game in the 15 years since Stranger's Wrath.