Jobs roundup: Blizzard's Chris Metzen retires after 22 years
A new general counsel for Unity, a guest writer for Bioware and more in this week's employment explosion
It can be difficult keeping track of the various comings and goings in the games industry, which is why we've decided to start compiling them in semi-regular round-ups. If you have new appointments or transitions in your company that belong here, please get in touch.
Blizzard's Chris Metzen retires - The SVP of creative development is hanging up his +10 strength hat after 22 years and 9 months with the company. "The reason I use the word 'retire' is because I'm not going to some other company or starting up new projects or anything remotely like that. It's been a long, amazing stretch of years. Now it's time to slow it down. Rest. Lay around on the couch and get fat. Well, fatter," he joked in a blog post.
NBCUniversal Brand Development announced Chris Heatherly as its new EVP for Worldwide Games and Digital Platforms - Previously, Heatherly could be found in the apps and games division at Disney, and he's also worked at frogdesign, Power Computing and Apple. "As the new worldwide leader of our Games and Digital Platforms team, he will drive strategic initiatives to broaden our games development and grow NBCUniversal's properties across digital platforms and emerging technologies," said president Vince Klaseus.
Failbetter co-founder Alexis Kennedy is now working with Bioware - Kennedy has the honour of being the company's first ever guest writer. "This has me literally rubbing my hands in delight every time I stop typing. I also get to work directly with Mike Laidlaw and Patrick Weekes - both exceptional amalgams of talent, charm and stylish beard-hair, whose work I've admired since Jade Empire and the first Mass Effect," he said.
Unity has hired Ruth Ann Keene as general counsel - She'll head up the the global Unity Technologies legal team, joining the company from Autodesk where she was vice president and assistant general counsel and assistant secretary. "It's exciting to be able to join Unity. It's not often you get to participate in a moment of exceptional growth like this," she said. "I look forward to being part of the Unity team as we scale our existing businesses and launch new products and services worldwide."
The new EVP of marketing at Green Man Gaming is Murray Beckett. He's previously worked at Marks and Spencers, British Airways and Nike and he'll focus on international expansions for the platform.
Rovio's "Mighty Eagle" Peter Vesterbacka has been given the title of Brand Breaker for education specialists Lightneer - He's previously been a board member and investor for the company. He said, "I could not be more thrilled to help the team at Lightneer change the paradigm of our relationships with games."
DimensionalMechanics has added Blizzard veteran Mike Ryder to its board. DimensionalMechanics is an artificial intelligence technology company and recently released its software solution NeoPulse 3D.
And finally, Royal Story studio FunPlus managed to announce a new hire - Without referring to its studio name, at all, in the press release. Impressive. It's tasked former Pixar artist Glenn Kim with working on its free-to-play title Royal Story. "All of the characters have been made by different artists, so there was not one style and guideline for the characters' designs," Kim said. "I felt that they characters could be more interesting and appealing to fans of the game."