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 weekly article will be to compile all of the big job appointments and departures 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 last week right here.
Movers and Shakers
Snap Games sharpens up with hires from Kongregate and Facebook
Snap Inc. has hired two new executives for its multiplayer gaming platform Snap Games.
The company has appointed Panayoti Haritatos as the head of Snap Games. In his new position, Haritatos will be responsible for the continued growth of the games division and its platform strategy.
Former Sega and Sumo Digital director James Back joins Supercell
Former Sumo Digital product director James Back has joined Supercell as a data scientist.
The appointment was announced via Back’s LinkedIn profile, showing that he will now be relocating to Helsinki to take up the new position.
Roblox welcomes Andrea Wong to its board of directors
Roblox has welcomed media industry veteran Andrea Wong to its board of directors.
Most recently, Wong served as the president of international at Sony, which involved her overseeing 18 production companies as part of Sony Pictures Television.
Ubisoft veteran Michel Ancel has quit the games industry
Games development veteran Michel Ancel has revealed that he is leaving the industry.
Ancel is best known for creating the Rayman series, which debuted back in 1995, as well as 2003’s Beyond Good & Evil.
Acquisitions
Microsoft acquires ZeniMax Media and Bethesda for $7.5 billion
Microsoft is set to acquire ZeniMax Media and its games publishing arm Bethesda Softworks.
The Xbox creator will pay $7.5 billion in cash to acquire ZeniMax. However, the deal is not expected to close until the second half of the 2021 fiscal year and is subject to closing conditions and the completion of regulatory review.
Former Lab Zero devs form new studio Future Club
Former Lab Zero developers have banded together to form a new studio known as Future Club.
The new independent studio is an employee-owned venture and will specialise in 2D animation, with responsive gameplay.
Jobs board
Check out a few select vacancies from our regularly updated jobs board:
Business Development Executive (Steel Media) – UK/Remote
Senior Unity Developer (Tapped) – London, UK
Game Designer (Zynga) – Bengaluru, India
Associate Project Manager (Cloud Imperium), Texas, US
The jobs board list can be viewed in full here.
Got jobs news you’d like to share? Contact PocketGamer.biz staff writer Matthew Forde at matthew.forde@steeelmedianetwork.com.
