Welcome to our new and improved regular article where we round-up the week’s big movers and shakers across the mobile games industry.
The focus of this regular article will be to compile all of the big job appointments, departures and studio moves in one easy to read place, alongside some standouts from our own jobs board and some useful articles for those job seeking at this time.
You can also catch up with all of the job news from our previous column.
Movers and Shakers
Kwalee hires Max Everingham to lead its push into console and PC
Hypercasual publisher Kwalee has hired former Team17 head Max Everingham to lead its push onto new platforms.
Over the years, Everingham has held a number of leadership roles at big-name companies such as Ubisoft, Pandemic and Codemasters.
Dan Riccio steps down as Apple head of engineering
Dan Riccio will step down as Apple’s head of engineering to work on a new mysterious project for the iPhone maker.
In his new role, Riccio will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook, though few details have been given on the project with several believing it to be related to a touch-screen Mac.
Studio news
RuneScape dev Jagex has been acquired AGAIN, this time by The Carlyle Group
Cambridge, UK-based games firm Jagex has been bought once again, this time by investment giant The Carlyle Group.
The RuneScape maker has confirmed that it was in new hands once again. No figure has been put on the deal, but reports point to Jagex having a higher price tag now than the $530 million that firm boasted when it was bought by Macarthur Fortune Holding in April 2020.
Rovio shuts down streaming platform Hatch, but Hatch Kids is still going
Hatch Premium, the educational streaming service owned by Rovio, has ceased operations.
An announcement via the Hatch website noted the service’s closure on December 31st, however, Rovio later confirmed that Hatch Kids will remain open for the time being.
Azerion fully acquires Habbo Hotel dev Sulake
Azerion Holding has reached an agreement with fellow Sulake shareholder Elisa Oyj to acquire the company fully.
Until now, Azerion controlled a majority stake in the Habbo Hotel creator, though it has now secured a deal with Oyj for the remaining 49 per cent of shares.
Tencent acquires majority stake in Don’t Starve dev Klei Entertainment
Tencent has acquired a majority stake in Don’t Starve studio Klei Entertainment.
Klei Entertainment founder Jamie Cheng confirmed that the company will continue to operate as it did before, “with no changes to staffing, projects or other operations.”
Jobs
Steel Media targets further growth and hires in 2021 to support the games industry
Steel Media is currently seeking an experienced senior sales manager to take the lead in selling Steel Media and Enthusiast’s EMEA consumer-facing inventory, plus a sales manager and sales executive to join the b2b sales team representing PG.Biz and our PG Connects events series.
Sales & Business Development Manager (B2B) – Europe, UK
EU Direct Sales Manager (Consumer Media) – Remote Working
If you’d like to know more about these opportunities, contact jobs@steelmedia.co.uk for details.
New job listing suggests more PlayStation mobile games on the way
It would appear as though PlayStation is ready to ramp up on mobile with its latest job listing.
PlayStation Europe is looking to hire an executive producer for mobile. The successful applicant will work across the London and Liverpool offices, with the possibility of remote working.
Jobs Board
Check out a few more select vacancies from our regularly updated jobs board:
Game Lead (Supercell) – Helsinki, Finland
QA Manager (Team17) – Manchester, UK
Performance Marketing Manager (Reality Games) – Krakow, Poland
Senior Quest Designer (Massive Entertainment) – Malmö, Sweden
HR Manager (Deep Silver Fishlabs) – Hamburg, Germany
Head on over to our Jobs Board for the full list of roles now on offer.
If you have any jobs news you would like to share, please feel free to drop a mail to matthew.forde@steeelmedianetwork.com.
