Not sure how the news came here about Chris' departure.  That only became official last week.  So here's the official scoop... As of last week Chris is on a leave of absence due to burn out.  Anybody who has ever worked remotely, without the daily routine interactions with Humans (or close equivalents!), knows that it's easy to do.  Especially for something like game development.  Very, very few people are wired to handle it long term.  Unfortunately, Chris is in the majority on this one