Simon Jeffery leaves Sega of America for...
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:29 pm
...Ngmoco, a company that produces games for iPhone/iPod Touch.
Full article here: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=24027Sega of America president and CEO Simon Jeffery is leaving his role for iPhone firm Ngmoco -- where he'll be heading up the company's brand-new publishing arm.
Ngmoco's new Plus Publishing group plans to partner with other iPhone developers to give them access to its publishing framework -- including Ngmoco's "social player network" that's currently in the works.
Ngmoco promises more details forthcoming about its Plus Network in the near future, but a concept similar to Xbox Live for mobile social-networked gameplay seems to be coalescing.
For now, though, Jeffery is enthusiastic about joining Ngmoco as it begins to grow beyond the development of well-received mobile titles like Rolando and aim for a leadership position in iPhone gaming across the board.
"I've been in the video game business for a very long 22 years, and I've pretty much worked in big, established companies that whole time since the beginning," Jeffery tells Gamasutra. And he says he's excited to see a "polarization" in the industry, an alternative to the hit-driven blockbuster model.
"People have stopped talking about the $25 million games, and we're talking about the $25,000 games," he says. "That shift in gaming has happened remarkably quickly, and I really want to be part of that."
"In a very, very short period of time, [Ngmoco has] built a nascent organization into something that's emerging as a potential leader in the gaming space on the iPhone."
Jeffery says Ngmoco's founding team always had a vision beyond simply publishing their own titles. "The ecosystem of iPhone gaming is so large and diverse that the successes that Ngmoco has built... we think we can share them with other developers, publishers and IP holders that might want a different way of getting to market with the platform that Ngmoco is building," he explains.