Virtual Worlds News

Zynga Gains Design Maven in Brian Reynolds

In the build-up to July 4th, VirtualWorldsNews missed a significant news item on the people front: that Brian Reynolds, one of the traditional game industry's most respected game designers, had signed on as chief designer with social gaming juggernaut Zynga. The hire reinforces a trend that is seeing a hasty entry into social gaming/virtual goods/virtual worlds sectors from the core gaming beat.

Playdom Hiring Coup Nets EA Senior Exec

It was as if you couldn't glance at a tech blog these past weeks without seeing the name John Pleasants mentioned somewhere.

The senior executive from Electronic Arts was giving interview after interview, touting EA's renewed commitment to digital goods and item-based microtransactions. But now, that's all been overshadowed by even bigger news -- that Pleasants has up and left his post as president of global publishing and chief operating officer of Electronic Arts to take up the CEO role at social games developer Playdom.

Sega's Simon Jeffery To Head Ngmoco's Plus+ Publishing

Today iPhone game publisher ngmoco announced that former Sega of America president and COO Simon Jeffery would be joining the company as Chief Publishing Officer. Jeffery will be the head of ngmoco's new Plus+ Publishing, a new ngmoco venture designed to let the company bring other iPhone apps into its cross-promotional network. The venture would also attempt to marry third-party titles to the nascent Plus+ Publishing game lineup.

Zynga Doubles Down, Adds Five Senior Execs

Zynga is in the news this week after announcing a number of executive hires. New staffers at the Texas Hold'em company are Reggie Davis, Robert Goldberg, Vish Makhijani, Colleen McCreary, and Mike Verdu.

The company, which is known primarily for its suite of games that are playable across a wide swath of social networks including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5 and Friendster became a significant player in the virtual worlds space after acquiring YoVille last year.

Brandissimo! Adds to Production Team

With a nod to what it calls a growing demand for its game and virtual worlds business, Brandissimo! added a managing web developer and producer to its team of 17 staffers in LA. Sean McKenzie leaves behind his own company which previously supplied Brandissimo! with assets and Mat Segal comes from Web, WAP, CMS, Flash mobile game developer Juice Wireless, respectively. Additionally, recent college grad Todd Schultz joins the company as community manager of the NFLRUSH Zone virtual game world. Among the stable of products from Brandissimo!are NFLRUSH Zone, NFLRUSH.com, Urbaniacs, and JellyBean Friends.com.

Playdom Accelerates Hiring, Comments on CEO Search

Playdom, a company staking its future on the fast-developing area of social gaming, is on a hiring binge. Today, the Mountain View, CA-based company announced two key hires -- and an evolution to its internal organization.

First, the company says it is moving toward a studio model, breaking its development talent into two distinct divisions, one that will focus on new intellectual property and a second to focus on role-playing games. To head those divisions are two new hires: Dave Rohrl, former Director of Game Design at Zynga, will lead the studio focused on developing new IP, while Sean Clark, former Studio Director for New Platforms at EA/Pogo, will focus his team on role-playing games. The search for a new CEO, however, continues.

Live Gamer Fills Out Executive Suite

Live Gamer has added former VEconomy CTO Barry Sohl to its executive lineup. Sohl will assume the role of senior vice president, a new position at the publisher-supported, secondary trading market for virtual goods. He will be responsible for diversifying the product lineup of the Live Gamer player-to-player trading platform.

FusionFall Executive Producer Now VP, Gaming Operations, Cartoon Network

Chris Waldron has been promoted to the position of vice president of gaming operations at the Cartoon Network, parent company TBS announced today. Waldron headed up developent of Cartoon Network's casual MMO, FusionFall, which launched earlier this year. He will continue to serve as executive producer on the title, but will also oversee the CN's overall games development studio, production, and strategy. 

"Chris continues to be one of the great leaders of our digital team, overseeing the successful launch of our largest and most ambitious game to date - FusionFall," said Paul Condolora, senior vice president, digital for TBS' Animation. "His commitment to quality gaming, relationships with game developers and expertise in the industry make him ideally suited to oversee our gaming efforts."

Hip Chicas Bolsters Advisory Board Pre-Launch

Hip Chicas, a multi-cultural tween virtual world, announced today that it had added Emmy-Award winning animation producer and Zookazoo Founder Sherry Gunther to its advisory board. Additionally, Maciej Miechowicz, formerly the lead architect of Barbiegirls.com and currently CTO of MegaPlayer , will oversee the architecture for HipChicas.com and help develop the world and team through the launch. Hip Chicas launched to a limited beta in September 2008 and is now prepping for a full launch.

"The first wave of virtual worlds proved that the technology works, that you can build an audience around the technology and that you can make revenues with that audience," stated Lazaro Fuentes, Founder and CEO of Hip Chicas. "With Maciej helping to create a scalable architecture and team coupled with Sherry’s creative experience on our Advisory Board, we will be poised to launch the next wave of sustainable virtual worlds, adding a narrative and characters that allow for monetization beyond the virtual world with music, animation and merchandise that will carry the message on multiple platforms.”

Ginsu Yoon Leaving Linden; Company Now Mostly Under New Management

In the trend of managment turnover for a new era, Ginsu Yoon, VP of Corporate Development, is leaving Linden Lab. As we noted last week when CFO John Zdanowski announced his departure, half of the executive management team has joined in the last year since Mark Kingdon took over as CEO. Yoon's departure pushes that over the halfway mark.