Steve Meretzky joins King
Veteran developer joins Candy Crush maker as VP of Design on unannounced new project
When Steve Meretzky was the victim of a reorganization at GSN Games in July, he told GamesIndustry.biz he was starting a job search with an eye for "an interesting creative challenge" and "a huge pile of money." Regardless of whether he found those particular traits, the job search is over.
Meretzky today announced in a public Facebook post that he has accepted a role with King Entertainment's San Francisco office as VP of Design on "a super-secret new project."
Meretzky has more than three decades of experience in the industry, gaining notoriety with text adventure giant Infocom in the '80s, creating Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Since that time, he has worked at a half-dozen other studios and a variety of genres, including mobile games at Floodgate Entertainment, social games with Playdom/Disney, and social casino games at GSN.
In a way, this will be a reunion between Meretzky and his employer. While he never worked for King, he was at Infocom when it was acquired by Activision, which later merged with Blizzard to form Activision Blizzard, which closed on its acquisition of King earlier this year.
As of this writing, an Activision Blizzard representative had not responded to a request for comment.