Chris Avellone actually, this has always interested me, not sure this was ever asked, did you have much interaction with Henkel on PST and how was the relationship, what was your impression of him?
It's a long story, but Guido got fired b/c the VP (Trish), Feargus, and Parker all got sick of him (I'll be blunt - I was sick of him 4 days after he started because of how he treated people, but then he pissed off people with a lot more authority than me, which is the death knell). I almost quit because of Guido's management during Torment and went to Westwood, longer story. I'm glad I hung in there, though.
To save face (which arguably, should be a nice thing to do), Feargus allowed Guido to act as if it was "resignation." (When Feargus doesn't like someone, he encourages them... actively... to quit.)
Even though I got the real story later on, I will say his resignation definitely wasn't by choice to everyone hearing it when it happened (he had to tell the whole team in the conference room and very suddenly) - Feargus was sitting by him the whole time while he was making the announcement, being the crushing, you better-behave-and-stick-to-script invisible hand on his resignation shoulder as Guido, pouting and upset, told the room he was resigning. Guido didn't look happy or content at his own news, for sure, which is when I got suspicious.
Usually, people resigning are like, "I wish you all the best," and "fuck yes," and "happy to keep working in 2 weeks, then I'm out of this dump, AMF" (although Black Isle wasn't doing as badly as the rest of Interplay), but Guido's expression wasn't that of someone who was a-joy with his own news, and it wasn't something that a very cold-looking Feargus needed to be there for. It was pretty creepy.
Based on that and asking later for confirmation, I was told by Feargus it wasn't Guido's choice at all - he really had only one choice. But in truth, I didn't need that - because Chris Parker had told me almost a month before (thank god for beer), "Avellone, I don't think you'll have to worry about Guido for much longer." I just had to make sure that Parker hadn't been drinking too much for confirmation, which Feargus provided. Admittedly, he could have been lying.
But to be clear, Guido's firing wasn't because of me - I genuinely believe Guido just pissed off people at a higher grade than me, and they hit back - hard. I can't say I wasn't glad to see him go, since he had checked out of Torment long before (our leads used to catch him working on his DVD review website at work, and had lectured him about it). Also, while I doubt this was the reason, Feargus also kept getting upset b/c Guido kept saying the paycheck he (Guido) agreed to was too small.
There's other stories about his, but I'm just answering the Grauken question - I didn't have much interaction with him, I didn't think he was a good PD, and he seemed more focused on fighting with his former partners on Realms of Arkania vs. the project he was on. Overall, when Ken Lee took over as lead producer (and then was also mistreated by Feargus, which I thought was unfair), I was incredibly relieved.
Guido had less impact on PST on anyone he mentioned vs. his face on the cover of the game (which he orchestrated without telling anyone), and it's something that can be checked with metrics. I would have gladly replaced Guido with a clone of any of the three people he disparaged (even me, and I'd have killed the clone quickly to prevent it from taking over my life), and the game would have been far better for it. I thought his comments on the Deadfire name for Pillars 2 was hilarious, and a perfect example for how he acted at Interplay.
