Ben Hanson, lead content designer of the
Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed expansion, has passed away, Gamasutra has learned. The news came
via a tweet from his colleague Raph Koster.
"Learned that the talented designer Ben Hanson passed away. Very sad news. He was a key contributor on
SWG & fun to play & argue with," Koster wrote.
Hanson's MobyGames profile
lists several contributions to the
Star Wars Galaxies franchise as well as other games. Hanson also worked at Simutronics, Origin, ArenaNet, and Digital Anvil, in addition to Sony Online Entertainment, according to a blog post he wrote.
In that 11-year old post on the official
Star Wars Galaxies site (
via archive.org) Hanson writes of his enthusiasm for online games: "I have been a big fan of online games ever since the first time I played them," Hanson wrote. "While single-player games were fun, it was these online wonders that captured my imagination..."
