“Amy’s one of my favorite people,” he noted. “ love Amy. How can you not love Amy, right? [She was] an amazing contributor to Naughty Dog and PlayStation. I’m always going to have the deepest admiration for her. But things change, and sometimes change involves very high profile individuals. That’s all that’s happened here. There’s nothing else. There’s no more to dig at.”
Pressed for more information on the fact that Hennig was seemingly fired – our sources note that she didn’t leave on her own accord – Rohde said that he’s “never going to agree with the term ‘pushed out’” when it comes to Hennig.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03...people-change-business-changes-things-changea
Update:
Naughty Dog said:Earlier this week we had to confirm the regrettable news that Amy Hennig has left Naughty Dog. She will be missed and, as we stated before, we appreciate the significant contributions that she has made to Naughty Dog and the industry in general. We wish her the best.
However, we feel it necessary to clear up a very important point that was unprofessionally misreported when the story broke. Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann were NOT involved in what transpired. It was very upsetting to us that dozens of stories were run, linking back to the same hurtful accusations in the original report. As co-presidents of Naughty Dog, we are responsible for all studio affairs.
Normally, we wouldn’t respond to rumors and speculation on matters that are internal to Naughty Dog, but because the personal reputation of two of our employees is being damaged we needed to set the record straight. There is nothing left to be said on this subject. Now we’re going back to what we should be focused on – making games.
Official statement from Naughty Dog Co-Presidents Evan Wells and Christopher Balestra here: http://www.naughtydog.com/site/post/statement_from_the_co_presidents1/