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Rockstar Leeds founder Gordon Hall dies

Developer whose works included GTA and Red Dead Redemption was 51 years old

Gordon Hall, founder of GTA Chinatown Wars developer Rockstar Leeds, has died.

The news emerges from various figures in the Yorkshire development scene, where he was largely based.

Hall's games career began by founding Möbius Entertainment in 1997, which produced a variety of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles. After its work on the GBA version of Max Payne, Rockstar Games acquired the studio and rebranded it as Rockstar Leeds.

Under Hall, the developer worked with fellow Rockstar teams to create titles such as Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and GTA: Chinatown Wars. Hall even worked at Rockstar San Diego in 2009, where he contributed to the development of Red Dead Redemption.

Between 2011 and 2013, he took a sabbatical to further research player psychology and microtransactions strategy, returning to games as chief creative officer for Activision Blizzard Mobile.

"Gordon was simply brilliant to be around, incredibly motivating and ever positive," said Martyn Brown, business development at Five Aces Publishing and co-founder of Team17.

"His pursuit of excellence was staggering and he formed a great, trusting bond with those who chose to work (hard) alongside him. As a close friend, he was truly inspirational and socially speaking a real energetic one-off who could endlessly entertain at the drop of a hat, holding everyone in the palm of his hand. Gordon will be very sadly missed."

Hall is survived by his son James.

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James Batchelor

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James Batchelor is Editor-in-Chief at GamesIndustry.biz. He has been a B2B journalist since 2006, and an author since he knew what one was

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