Jobs
IGDA names new chairman and vice chair as David Seltzer steps back from leadership role
Vesa Raudasoja succeeds Seltzer as chairman while Emily Greer takes on the vice chair position
Out
Goodgame founders relinquish leadership positions following Stillfront deal
Doctors Kai and Christian Wawrzinek to focus on new roles as Stillfront shareholders
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: Gismart's Andrey Savitsky on how to be a sound designer
"Personal development is key. You need to stay on top of your game and constantly learn about new tools and technology all the time"
Tough Times
“It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times": IGDA exec Jen MacLean on being a games developer in 2018
"We also know that the games industry is cyclical, and I suspect that some of the things that we see with studio closures are only the beginning"
Job Klaxon
Animoca Brands brings in former Mozilla exec to head up strategic partnerships
As part of his role Gen Kanai will help to advance the company’s blockchain strategy
Job Losses
Tekken Mobile developer Bandai Namco Vancouver closes
Senior vice president claims all but a "small skeleton crew" have been laid off at the Canada office
Job Klaxon
Angry Birds developer Rovio swoops for Gameloft exec to head up games teams
Alexandre Pelletier-Normand joins from Gameloft, where he served as executive vice president of games
Job Losses
Flaregames restructure leads to 45 layoffs as CEO Klaas Kersting steps down
Todd English takes over as CEO
Hired
Top Drives developer Hutch snaps up trio of hires from Jagex, Firefly and Sega
London studio takes on a new server engineer, embedded QA tester, and brand and marketing director
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: Hutch's Matthew Pelly on how to get a job as head of QA and customer support
"We are not here to rubber stamp releases and it is a fatal mistake to step into that role"
Hired
Hasbro and Angry Birds veterans join AR toy developer Draw & Code
Brett Page and Becky Jones take on new leadership roles at the SwapBots studio
Woah
Fortnite developer Epic Games to open new Australia and New Zealand branch
GDA Australia CEO Anthony Reed will be stepping down from his role to help start it up
Jobs News
Former Oculus CEO and co-founder Brendan Iribe follows Palmer Luckey out the door
Spent six years with the virtual reality pioneers
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: How Simon Fenton became head of games at Escape Studios and his advice for devs breaking through
"Stay hungry and passionate, work hard and build your experience. You’ll get your chance."
Putting The U In Union
Ex-Telltale dev: "Developers deserve a lot better than what this industry is giving us right now"
Former Telltale Games narrative designer Grace Buck gave the illuminating talk at the Sweden Games Conference
Ask Me Anything
Skybound Games CEO talks finishing The Walking Dead: The Final Season, bringing back Telltale staff and crunch
"I can say that I would never expect or ask anyone to work what would be considered inhumane hours"
Alerte D’emploi
Ubisoft promotes from within for chief financial officer
Current CFO Alain Martinez will retire at the end of the year
Job News Hype
Finnish studio Seriously adds trio of key hires to its ranks
Sylvain Cunzi joins at VP of games technology, Brian Ru joins as director of strategy and operations while Jamie Samson joins as Legal Counsel
Jobs News
Sega aims to improve work-life balance for employees
Japanese publisher also interested in addressing addiction
New Shelter
Bethesda opens Moscow sales and marketing branch
Firm announces opening of a studio it didn't already own
Seasoned Veteran
Former EA Mobile senior VP Mike Verdu joins advisory board at Boss Fight Entertainment
Developer aims to up its publishing game
Insert Details Here
Skybound keeps details on The Walking Dead: The Final Season's future vague
“We are doing our best to take care of the people. Our intent is to work with the original team but there are a lot of moving parts"
Jobs News
Blizzard vet Heinecke is Square Enix's new chief marketing officer
Has worked on IP including Overwatch, Hearthstone, StarCraft 2 as well as World of Warcraft
Jobs News
ESA president Mike Gallagher steps down
SVP and general counsel Stanley Pierre-Louis will fill this spot until a successor is found
Living On?
Skybound to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season following Telltale closure
Original team members may join development team
Laid Off
Report: Remaining Telltale Games staff get the boot
One of the staff affected took to Twitter to confirm the news
Tale Continued?
Telltale wants another company to hire ex-staff and finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season
The third episode is reportedly nearly finished
Jobs News
Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder Mike Morhaime steps down
World of Warcraft executive producer employee J. Allen Brack replaces him in top job
Enough Is Enough?
Studio employees campaign against poor working conditions with #AsAGamesWorker hashtag
Developers let out their frustrations over industry working conditions
Jobs News
Animoca Brands brings in Xbox co-founder Ed Fries as strategic advisor
Former Microsoft exec had been advising developer Pixowl before it was acquired by the Hong Kong publisher
Jobs
Sega of America’s Ian Curran and Tatsuyuki Miyazaki take on additional roles as COO and CEO of Atlus USA
Former CEO Naoto Hiraoka bcomes brand owner to promote company's titles worldwide
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: Rovio's Heini Kaihu on how to get a job as head of studio
"Games have become mainstream entertainment and the more diverse a group of people we have in the industry creating the experiences, the better"
Expert Advice
IGDA launches Virtual Mentor Cafe in support of recently laid off devs at Telltale, Capcom Vancouver, Big Fish and more
People affected can seek advice from industry experts
International Recruitment
Games Factory Talents aims to showcase global dev talent to Finnish studios
Initiative to focus on Eastern European developers seeking jobs in Finland
Tapped Up
Ad tech outfit Tappx names Fernando Saiz as chief marketing officer
Promoted from head of growth
Closure
Disney Canada layoffs as Club Penguin Island closes
The web version of the social game had shut down the year prior
Legal
Former employee hits Telltale Games with a class action lawsuit
Redundancies made “without cause” may have broken state and federal labour laws
Cut
Big Fish Games cut 15% of workforce eight months after $1 billion takeover
Company out to restructure around social casino and casual games as executive roles also cut
Telltale Signs
Failure to finalise new funding round the catalyst for mass Telltale Games layoffs
Sources claim Lionsgate stopped funding Telltale to refocus on its own business
Cliffhanger
Telltale moves to quell fan fears over The Walking Dead amid pressure to offer ex-employees severance
The developer offered the update on Twitter
Road To Investments
Scopely swoops for Glu’s Rob Ricca to lead M&A activity
Rob Ricca previously led M&A at Glu Mobile, during which time it purchased Crowdstaf and Plain Vanilla
Opening
Shop Heroes developer Cloudcade opens 50-person studio in Pakistan
Cloudcade hopes the new South Asia location will help the studio develop 4 games simultaneously
Cancelled
Telltale’s The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us unlikely to see completion, claims voice actress
Clementine voice actress Melissa Hutchinson took to Twitter to share the news
Jobs
Games industry opens its doors to laid off Telltale employees with #telltalejobs
Online support and a California-based Meet the Dev event hope to transition stranded developers into new roles
Studio Closure
“I'm mostly saddened for the people who are losing their jobs”: Ousted Telltale CEO speaks out on studio closure
Kevin Bruner was originally ousted from the company last year by investors
Lay-off Woes
Game Workers Unite issues scathing response to Telltale Games layoffs
“The system for creating games is broken, and it will result in the collapse of many other beloved studios”
Job News Klaxon
Former Netflix publicity director joins Scopely as head of corporate communications
Geldmacher will be responsible for strategy and oversight of the company’s global brand and worldwide corporate narrative
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: Space Ape’s Ioannis Lefkatditis on leading the charge with Transformers: Earth Wars
From degrees to job misconceptions, Lefkatditis on how to get a job as a product lead
Canada Expansion
Improbable opens new Edmonton office helmed by BioWare veteran Aaryn Flynn
"SpatialOS is going to transform how people make and play games, and with this new office we want to help that to happen"
Shutting Down
Dead Rising and Puzzle Fighter studio Capcom Vancouver closes
Around 158 job losses as a result