Tag Archives: John Pleasants

Disney announced today it has acquired the online social gaming company Playdom Inc. for $563.2 million.

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Former EA COO John Pleasants has joined social games developer Playdom as its new CEO.

Co-founder and current CEO Dan Yue will take the position of chief product officer, and says Pleasants’ experience overseeing Pogo, Rupture, mobile games, and EA’s social gaming made him a good choice.

“Online gaming is the fastest-growing sector of the gaming industry, and social gaming, in particular, is transforming the way people play and experience games,” said Pleasants.

Playdom is responsible for social network games such as Mobsters, a popular online game on Facebook and MySpace.

The company claims there are more than 20 million monthly users playings its games.

More through Gamasutra.

As games become services, EA COO John Pleasants has told Venturebeat, the standard model of how the general development industry operated will be thrown out the window. Probably into a “dumpster”.

“If you believe all games will eventually be services — as I do — then the idea of game teams that make a game, ship it, and then do something else goes away,” he said.

“They will now ship and day one begins when the customer gives feedback to the live service. The way you distribute will be different. The way you charge will be different. There will be more permutations in pricing. Merchandising will be much more important. Co-marketing will be much more important.

“You have to have persistent identification and entitlements for a user, no matter where they are or in what game they’re playing.”

EA is currently in the process of onlinifying Tiger Woods, the thin end of what will obviously be a rather large wedge.

There’s a good interview through there.

EA has confirmed that Dead Space: Extraction will not be using MotionPlus when it releases for Wii.

While EA’s John Pleasants was wowing the crowd over at the 2009 Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, he did mention the game in almost the same breath as the firm’s Wii MotionPlus plans, causing a bit of confusion in some places around the ‘net.

It’s not happening though. Thanks to IGN for clearing it up.

In an earnings call following some nasty second quarter financials yesterday, EA boss John Riccitiello said the firm is to spend $150 million on digital distribution models in the current financial year.

“In the future we see slower growth in the basic packaged goods business, and higher margins, greater growth and reduced cyclicality with these new direct-to-consumer businesses,” he said.

Are you listening, Mr High Street Buyer?

COO John Pleasants said EA is on track to generate $185 million in online revenue this fiscal year.

Riccitiello added that Burnout Paradise, the company’s first full-scale console digital download, had achieved sales of 20,000 in its first three weeks at market.

Thanks, Edge.

EA has appointed games industry virgin John Pleasants as president, global publishing and chief operating officer, the latest step in CEO John Riccitiello’s mega-plan to take over the world.

This is a phenomenal opportunity and there’s no better time to be joining EA,” said John Pleasants. “John Riccitiello and the team at EA have laid out the right plan to take EA forward by building innovative products, expanding digital revenues, and extending its strengths in global publishing. I’m excited about the challenge of leading these initiatives and working with this talented team.”

More here.