Here every Monday, we’ve got the biggest moves and promotions from across the mobile games business, all in one spot.
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The Sandbox: Former Ubisoft, Apple and PlayStation exec Nicola Sebastiani has been appointed chief content officer at the Animoca-backed metaverse firm.
He joins after stints at Apple, where he was head of business development on the App Store and head of content for Apple Arcade, and later as VP and head of mobile at PlayStation Studios.
The Sandbox also made a couple of other promotions last week: former North America CEO Mathieu Nouzarethis now chief business officer and chief growth officer Amit Kumar is now chief marketing officer.
Netflix Games: Former Crytek, Wizards of the Coast, Blizzard and Phoenix Labs artist Will Murai is now lead concept artist at Netflix Games.
Murai is working on “an original AAA title”, he says, alongside the likes of former overwatch lead Chacko Sonny, former creative leader on Destiny and Halo Joseph Staten and former God of War: Ragnarok art director Rafael Grassetti.
Supercell: The Finnish firm has hired Aki Saarinen as head of Supercell X, a new arm of the company that oversees its web shop, ID and web products. Saarinen joins from ecommerce giant Mercari, where most recently he served as Marketplace CPO. He has also previously founded Day One Tech and served in senior roles at Reaktor.
Unipoly Games: Former PolyDream business development manager Fidan Rustamli has joined Istanbul-based Unipoly as COO. She joins from PolyDream Studio, where she was bizdev manager.
Livewire: The games marketing firm has opened a new London office and appointed Tom Simpson as global CEO. Simpson was previously non-executive chair at Totally Awesome and served at AdColony as SVP for APAC.
Sandsoft Games: The Saudi firm has hired Ivana Ricchetti as recruiter to help fill open roles at its Barcelona and Riyadh studios, and Ada Toll as GL accountant.
Six To Start: As reported by gamesindustry.biz, around 50% of the Zombies, Run! studio has been laid off due to “contract terminations/non-renewal”.
The departures include founder Adrian Hon, who will be departing early next year after 17 years at the firm. Hon sold the business to fitness company OliveX in 2021.
The Experimentation Group: As we revealed last week, this new consultancy wants to “transform science in games”.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, the new outfit has been formed by former VP of experimentation at King David Nelson, King’s ex product lead for experimentation Tom Storr and former game economist at EA and Amazon Phillip Black.
