Arthur Houtman appointment

Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 12th November 2010. Two months after announcing the official founding of the company, Vanguard Entertainment Group has now appointed Arthur Houtman as its group CEO. Houtman joins CCO Martin de Ronde and COO Guy Melis, completing the group’s team of executive directors. Both de Ronde and Melis will both report to Houtman directly and Houtman will assume the role immediately.

Houtman is no stranger to games and has extensive experience in the field of online MMO games, having been involved in bringing some of the world’s leading entertainment brands to the world of browser-based MMOs during his time at Disney Online. Moreover, prior to his tenure at Disney Corp, he was VP of Product Development at Atari / Infogrames for a number of years, where he worked on many triple A PC and console products.

“We think Arthur Houtman is exactly the right man for the job at hand”, stated Michiel Mol, co-founder and member of the board of directors of the company. “ With Vanguard’s mission revolving around merging the best of online gaming with that of console gaming, Arthur’s combined experience in both those markets fits our strategy perfectly and we are convinced he can execute on the strategy accordingly.”

“Over the past few years I’ve been witness to an online revolution which is yet to properly hit the world of consoles and I can’t wait to apply the experience I gained at Disney Online to the PSN and XBLA products Vanguard is developing”, states Houtman. “ We have a great team and some very exciting new types of online games in the pipeline, and I look forward to the challengeof making these products a success.”

Vanguard announced its partnership with Electronic Arts earlier this week for its first title Gatling Gears for PSN, XBLA and PC. Gatling Gears will launch early 2011 and will be followed by a number of games for a variety of different formats in the course of next year.