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Zynga CCO Mike Verdu departs to start new company
Mike Verdu has given up his gig as chief creative officer at Zynga to start up a new company. Verdu seems to have left on amicable terms, with AllThingsD revealing that Zynga will be an investor in his new venture and also act as publisher. The new studio's games will be available on the Zynga Platform.Verdu's departure follows another recent high-profile exit, namely chief operating officer John Schappert. "I personally don't want to add to the noise level," Verdu told AllThingsD. "I think this will be a good thing for me and for Zynga." He added that while he's "concerned about how this might be viewed with what else is going on," it's more to get back to being an entrepreneur than "anything else going on at the company."In his goodbye address, Verdu thanked his colleagues and friends at Zynga for his three years there. "After a lot of soul-searching, I have decided to go back to my roots and start a new company," Verdu said. Before his time at Zynga, he spent several years at EA and Atari.
Jagex hires Rockstar's Alex Horton as Chief Creative Officer
Alex Horton, an ex-Rockstar animator and designer whose resume includes Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Red Dead Revolver, is now Chief Creative Officer at Jagex, the Cambridge developer most known for its free-to-play MMO RuneScape. Horton's position allows him oversight on the creative direction of every project in development at Jagex, and it's his responsibility to "ensure all of our games achieve their true mass market potential," according to CEO Mark Gerhard. We give it three months before Horton's mental facilities are questioned due to his propensity towards conversing with dust-specks. What's that? Different Horton? Oh, this guy should be fine then.
Take a video tour of Cryptic Studios
In what is said to be only the first installment of a new video-podcast series, Cryptic Studios have invited all of us to peak over their shoulders and see some of the members of their team at work. The video, titled "Day as a Dev", introduces us to the Production Team. Chief Creative Officer Jack Emmert recaps the three titles that the studio is working on: Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and one unannounced super-secret game. Most of the developers we meet in the video are part of the large Champions team, but all three games are represented.It's always nice to get this sort of behind-the-scenes look at the development process for an anticipated game, and to see how the different aspects come together to make up the whole picture. We also get to see how Bill Roper is doing in his new role at Cryptic as Design Director for Champions Online. However, we're going to have to award the "best quote" to Randy Mosiondz: "It's a challenging job, but at the end of the day, I make video games, and what's more, a super-hero video game, so there's nothing wrong with that."
