From eSports to consumer products and social media, here are some of the biggest job moves from the past week.
ESports producer, ESL has partnered with former Fox TV exec, David Hill—who launched Fox Sports in the US—to give its video game competitions more television-style production values.
Activision Blizzard opened a new consumer products division with former Mattel and Disney exec, Tim Kilpin as the group’s CEO. The company, which publishes the Call of Duty franchise and Overwatch, said in a statement that the new division is a “strategic pillar” in its expansion of the platforms. Other pillars include interactive content, film and television, competitive gaming and mobile.
Jim Norton, the chief business officer and president of revenue at Condé Nast, was elected chairman of the board of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Additionally, Scott Schiller, executive vice president-general manager of marketing, advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal, was elected vice chairman.
Facebook has hired Tamara Hrivnak to lead its global music strategy and business development. Hrivnak is leaving her position at director of music partnerships at YouTube and Google Play to join Facebook.
After over a year without a CEO, the message and chat company, Viber announced that Djamel Agaoua will be stepping into the role. He will help to “accelerate development of innovative new features and [grow] the platform’s global user base,” according to a company statement.
Abercrombie & Fitch announced the appointment of Will A. Smith as Chief Marketing Officer. Smith will be responsible for all brand, creative and digital marketing for the company.
Panasonic Corporation of North America made a number of management changes this week, starting with naming Hideo Nakano as CEO of Panasonic Avionics, the supplier of inflight entertainment and communication systems. Additionally, Mark Jennings will serve as COO and Seigo Tada as CFO.
Redbox has named Ash Eldifrawi as its chief marketing and customer experience officer. Eldifrawi was most recently the chief commercial officer at Gogo.
Two Remedy Entertainment (Quantum Break; Alan Wake) veterans, Kari Koivistoinen and Kari Huttunen have founded their own studio based out of Helsinki, Finland. The studio, called 3rd Eye Studios, will specialize in VR games and its first project is an anthology series of games inspired by The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror.
Take-Two Interactive has taken a major step into mobile game development with the acquisition of Social Point, a publisher based out of Barcelona. Social point was purchased for $250 million, with additional earn-outs of up to $25.9 million.
ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (Fallout 4; The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) and id Software (Doom) has acquired the Texas-based mobile and console game company, Escalation Studios. Escalation will work to develop games across all platforms, including VR.
Gaming technology company, Razer announced that it has acquired the majority of the assets of Nextbit Systems Inc. for an undisclosed price. Nextbit is best known for Robin, an Android-based mobile phone that seamlessly merges cloud and onboard storage.
Honorable mention: Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco, who is credited as “the father of Pac-Man” passed away at age 91. Namco made huge contributions to the video game scene in the ‘70s and ‘80s with the release of classics such as Galaxian, Galaga, Pole Position, Xevious and Pac-Man, which helped shape the industry in Japan. In 2007, the Japanese government awarded Nakamura with the Order of the Rising Sun for his contributions to a now thriving industry.
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