Kixeye has hired Alan Patmore, former GM on Zynga’s CityVille, to be vice president of product. Now, Patmore will oversee Kixeye’s development and strategy plans for Facebook games like Battle Pirates and War Commander.
“We wanted to pry people out of roles where their visions didn’t match where their company was going,” said Will Harbin, CEO of Kixeye. “Zynga is about making games for grandmothers. There are a lot of talented game developers at Zynga working on games they don’t really care about. Alan only had a brief journey into the dark side at Zynga. He developed valuable skills there. We were looking for people who had AAA game experience and had made the transition to free-to-play social games. Now Alan will come back to the light side.”
“I’m a big fan of Kixeye and what they’ve been able to accomplish over the last couple of years,” Patmore added. “I believe that there’s a massive opportunity to bring AAA production value to core, free-to-play games, and Kixeye is perfectly positioned to lead that charge. I couldn’t be more excited about the team, strategy, and product road map. There are some launches coming later this year that are going to set the industry on fire.”
Source: VentureBeat
