Devolver CEO Douglas Morin is stepping down from his role, being replaced by original co-founder of Devolver Harry Miller. Miller founded the company in 2009 as part of a team with Rick Stults, Graeme Struther, Nigel Lowrie and Mike Wilson.
Miller will be leaving his role as executive chairman and returning to the CEO role he held before Morin's appointment. Previously Miller lead Ritual Entertainment, and held senior roles at Gathering of Developers, Gamecock Media and En-Tranz Entertainment.
Graeme Struther, COO and co-founder of Devolver, will now be joining the company board and Kate Marsh will be stepping up to non-executive chair having previously been senior independent director.
Time for change
Morin joined Devolver in 2020 as their chief of staff becoming CEO in 2021, guiding the company through their IPO that year.
"On behalf of the Board and everyone at Devolver, I would like to thank Douglas for his significant commitment and achievements at Devolver in the last four years," Miller said in a statement.
"Douglas' energy, leadership and determination were critical to our IPO and programme to build our infrastructure as a listed company, culminating in the exciting System Era acquisition. I am excited by the opportunity to step back into the CEO role. It's an incredible pleasure and honour to continue to work with Devolver's fantastic and talented team, building out a strong pipeline of fun and creativity, and of course delivering on our long-term growth strategy."
Following their recent trading updatd Miller said: "After a quiet year in 2023 for major title releases, we enter 2024 with a release schedule featuring wonderful titles such as Pepper Grinder, The Plucky Squire, Anger Foot and NEVA, with releases more evenly balanced throughout the year.
"In addition, we will enjoy a full year of contribution from recently acquired System Era which takes us into the exciting area of expandable games and has performed in line with expectations since acquisition. As a result of this momentum for our strategy heading into 2024, we expect Normalised Adjusted EBITDA to return to growth in 2024 and accelerate in 2025."
New broom, new plans
Having previously suffered some setbacks that saw a slew of games delayed until 2024, Devolver as recently as last week shed 25 staff at their Polish studio, Artificer, the makers of Showgunners with up to a dozen more expected to leave once their current game is finished
Plus, post November 2021 IPO the company's share price hasn't seen plain sailing. Having launched at 187.5gbx the price hit an all time high of 218gbx in January of 2022. However, the global downturn in gaming, following that pandemic high has affected prices and prospects all through the industry. Devolver's shares currently sit at 18.5gbx.
