IMHO people here need to stop singling out one man and equating the success of SH5 to his personality. I mean, Dan might be the greatest guy in the world, but he is part of
a team...and not a small team by the looks of things.
I think Alexandru Gris, the SH5 Project Manager/Producer (Ubisoft Romania), provides great insight into the workings of the Romanian dev team on
his blog.
To put his comments into perspective, here's the
SH4 dev team bios.
Read into all this what you like. But certainly, it makes a mockery of comments like "I've met Dan and he's a great guy so don't blame the devs" or "Dan will fix it for us!". Such comments might be true if Dan was
the team, Project Manager, or even Lead Programmer, but erm...
I'd actually argue that if
anything put pressure on him it's comments like "I've met Dan, and I trust him" or "Dan's a great guy, he'll fix it for us". That's a LOT of weight for someone who is a member of
a team and is
much harder to dismiss as the ramblings of a mad man than the usual "it's all the devs fault".
Anyway, I think Alex's blog entry paints a clear picture that might just challenge the beliefs of some people here...