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General: Turbine Explains Corporate Changes
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
As promised, Turbine has sent out a press release going into more detail about the company's recent corporate shake-up that saw Jim Crowley installed as their new CEO and President. Turbine says that the reason for the change was to set up the company for long term growth, although no specifics were given on how the personnel change would better help them meet this goal. Update: Former CEO and President Jeff Anderson's is said to have been involved with theses decisions and is still involved with the company.
TURBINE'S MANAGEMENT TEAM POISED FOR LONG-TERM GROWTH
WESTWOOD, MA - October 5, 2007 - Turbine, Inc., one of the largest privately-held online game companies in North America, announced today changes in its management team designed to position the company for long-term growth. Jim Crowley has been named president and CEO. The move is one of many that Turbine has recently made to invest in new talent that will drive the next wave of the company's growth including the addition of industry veterans Craig Alexander as Vice President of Product Development and Walt Yarbrough as Executive Producer.
Founded in 1994, Turbine is one of the first companies dedicated to creating massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG). Over its 13 year history the company has grown from a small contract developer offering one of the first 3D online role playing games to an industry powerhouse operating three successful franchises. Crowley had been working with Turbine's management team for a number of months on a long-term strategic plan designed to build on the success of the company's most recent hit The Lord of the Rings Online™ before being named president and CEO. He will lead the efforts to maximize opportunities for Turbine's roster of franchises, as well as seek new revenue streams through a range of strategic initiatives already underway.
Crowley brings a wealth of operational experience to Turbine. As Chief Operating Officer of m-Qube, Crowley helped turn m-Qube into one of North America's largest mobile media companies. Prior to m- Qube, Crowley was Chief Operating Officer of Network Plus, Inc., one of the country's largest publicly traded competitive telecommunications and data providers. Crowley is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Connecticut College.
Read the full release here.
Comments
Looks like they are trying to insert some mobile expertise, maybe to help drive some sort of transmedial access.
Dang was hoping they would talk about their next secret project. I'm all curious to know what it is!!!!
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
I can hear the conversaion with the borad of directors now
"Thank you Mr Anderson for all your time and effort you put into this company. Now if you'd just wait till a member of secuirty escorts you from the building ... you what? oh your personal belongings, don't worry we'll have someone throw them to you from the rooftop."
I mean they don't exactly go out of their way to dispell any roumor that he's been canned faster than a tuna.
I'm just as curious to find out weather or not they canned the braniac who updated their website with the new info before a statement could be made about it as I am with hearing the real story behind the new CEO / President.
Corporate changes like this in the game industry happen all the time. Why this is even that news worthy of a discussion is beyond me. I mean if they suddenly fired like dozens of people including those that are in direct conversation of players (like some of the changes at Mythic with its community leaders) I could see it being worth some deep pondering or wise cracking.
Such is the nature of the corporate beast.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
mQube hustled millions of dollars out of unsuspecting wireless subscribers...cant wait for the ingame advertising and SMS messages to hit my email box from their new games. :::puke:::
Notice how the press release conveniently fails to make any mention of that 'other' game, AC2, that they foisted out and then cheated folks with by selling an expansion just a few weeks before closing down the servers.
* AC - Great game, for its day
* AC2 - POS game then, and now
* DDO - POS game then, and now
* LOTRO - EQ2 / WoW / DAoC Clone. Not bad, but not good either. Nothing new.
Short history of Turbine from a paying customer's perspective.
YMMV
Good Hunting
Hmm, well whatever.
Just a quick update to this story, I was speaking with Adam Mersky, Director of Communications at Turbine, and he assures us that although the changes look abrupt from an outside point of view, these changes were planned some time in advance. The decision was made by their Board of Directors, which includes Jeff Anderson, and they decided that putting new people in new positions would benefit their long term growth strategy. Jeff Anderson is still on the Board of Directors and continues to work at Turbine.
My guess is Mr Anderson wanted to get back to what he does best and that is designing games. The new guy seems to have some management expertise, could be a good move for Turbine.
I don't see why some people have to jump all over Turbine. AC2 was their only failure, DDO just suffers from limits imposed by the licensee. Hard to make a MMO out of a board game using simliar rulesets. Lotr is a very well written game, again it has limits imposed on it by the lore. It is still doing quite well, much better than say something like Vanguard or EQ2.
You watch, War will suffer from the same limitations.
If you read between the lines - this statement clearly catches the eye:
LOTRO is second bigest MMO by number of subscriptions* (in north america)
I wish Turbine the best. Asheron's Call got me into MMOs and even though I havent played it in a few years, I still think its one of the best online games ever made.
Thanks for the update on this Szark - just that little bit of info puts a much better perspective on the whole thing.
Dunno about Turbine, but with mythic a lot of the old blood left when they sold to EA.
Sanya is working over at guild cafe now though, if you need your Sanya fix periodically.
D.