EA COO Schappert Resigns, Heads to Zynga
John Schappert, EA’s Chief Operating Officer, resigned Monday to take a job heading up Zynga’s games division. The news comes from a SEC filing uncovered by reporters early this morning.
While at EA, Schappert helped to develop mobile and social games for the company, making his new home a natural fit. Prior to that, he’d worked for Microsoft as Corporate Vice President of their Interactive Entertainment Business, a fancy way of saying he oversaw the Live and Microsoft Game Studios divisions.
The optimist in me wants to think that Schappert will be good for Zynga, bringing some semblance of console sensibility to a company that basically charges people ludicrous amounts of money to tinker with a fancy menu, but my realist says he’s just going where the money is. I can’t fault him: Zynga is currently valued at up to $10 billion, and as reprehensible as many folks – myself included – find their business model, the “games” they put out always seem to find widespread appeal. Time will have to tell.
Seems like a strange move to me – I actually thought these Facebook games were on the decline. I don’t see half the people on Farmville during classes that I did last semester. Every release seems to be a newly skinned version of the last game they put out. But what do I know? 10 billion is a lot of money – you’d think that they would change it up a little bit with such capital at their hands.
It will be interesting to see all these people jumping on the social games bandwagon when it bottoms out.
Doesn’t seem like it’s all that far off as I see almost all my family/friends playing little to none of these anymore.
Meh.
I wouldn’t say anything else, but apparently there’s a minimum character requirement.
Meh.