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Survios' Chris Hewish to leave after a year as studio head

Departure quickly follows the success of Raw Data and closure of $50 million funding round

Survios' Chris Hewish is stepping down as head of studio little more than a year after he first arrived.

Hewish joined Survios in January 2016, bringing senior experience from Activision and DreamWorks Animation, among other companies. However, Hewish has decided that it is already time to move on, with Survios confirming the news to UploadVR.

"We're a growing company, and as a growing company it's natural for changes to occur," Survios said in a statement. "Chris has made valuable contributions to our team and will be missed. We wish him the best on his future endeavours."

Survios demurred from offering any more details due to "company policy regarding personnel matters." Hewish later clarified that he is still on "friendly terms" with Survios, and that it was "a good time to start looking at other areas I can add value."

"There is no lack of faith in VR, I'm still a big believer," Hewish added. "We're in the early days, need lower price points, new hardware cycles, etc. After being with Survios I've got new energy for the industry again."

Hewish said he would reveal his plans in the next few weeks, but the brevity of his time with Survios is nonetheless striking. And all the more so for the relative success that the company has achieved since his arrival, finding commercial success in a difficult VR market with Raw Data, and helping to secure $50 million in funding at the end of last year.

Survios' next game will be Sprint Vector, an action game based around running that, Survios has claimed, avoids the nausea associated with locomotion in VR.

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Matthew Handrahan avatar
Matthew Handrahan joined GamesIndustry in 2011, bringing long-form feature-writing experience to the team as well as a deep understanding of the video game development business. He previously spent more than five years at award-winning magazine gamesTM.
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