Job News

Rovio COO David Byrne flies the nest to join NaturalMotion as new COO

Overseeing operations in all its studios

Rovio COO David Byrne flies the nest to join NaturalMotion as new COO

NaturalMotion has hired Rovio COO and SVP David Byrne as its new COO.

Byrne will report directly to CEO Torsten Reil and will oversee the operational side of NaturalMotion. He will be based in London, but will oversee teams in Brighton and Oxford too.

Byrne will also be involved in growing NaturalMotion with its two releases of 2016; CSR Racing 2, launched in June, and Dawn of Titans, which went live on December 8th.

True veteran

Byrne has been involved in games since 1994, when he joined Bullfrog Studios as Finance Director. Since then he has held executive roles at EA, Playfish, and most recently, at Rovio.

The CSR Racing series is the top grossing racing franchise of 2016 on Apple's App Store, with CSR Racing 2 being the top grossing racing game in over 50 countries. It is currently number 17 in the US overall top grossing charts on iOS.

Dawn of Titans spent nearly two years in soft launch before today's release. NaturalMotion CEO Torstein Reil has said the team took so long on the game because they wanted to "really create something special".


Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.