THE BRIT LIST: PUBLISHING PHIL ROGERS, SQUARE ENIX
IT has been a mixed few years for Square Enix’s Western business. Despite the successful re-launch of Tomb Raider, the return of Hitmanand one of the biggest new IPs in recent years (Sleeping Dogs), the company still missed its targets, forcing the firm to reorganise. The man tasked with rebuilding Square Enix West is long-serving CEO, Phil Rogers. And he’s already made a significant start, with a more open-strategy towards fans, serious investment in building quality mobile games, plus the deployment of several experimental online projects. Rogers may be best known for his publishing responsibilities, but he’s a CEO that knows development, too. Having started his career creating middleware for studios. “It was a very nascent tech and although initially rejected by some, it was adopted by some great dev teams around the world and ultimately acquired by David Lau- Kee at Criterion,” recalls Rogers. And it was the Criterion team, along with a number of other
RUPERT WHITEHEAD, GOOGLE
USING his experience in developer relations from his time at mobile giant Nokia, Google’s Whitehead and his team seek out and work with developers that have the potential to reach a large number of people around the world. Whitehead has been behind a number of developer events including DevFest and Google Developer Groups.
ROB LOWE, BBC
LOWE rose to games industry fame as one of the marketing men responsible for making Wii and DS two of the most successful consoles in history. He joined BBC Worldwide in 2012 and – fed up with the number of substandard video games produced by the firm’s Los Angeles team – took video games back in house in the UK.
ROY STACKHOUSE, ACTIVISION UK
business visionaries, that has inspired Rogers so far in his career. “Thinking back, [Criterion founders]
Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry would be a couple of people who influenced me when it comes to studios, although I wasn’t particularly close to them at Criterion, that was my first experience of the passion, commitment and ‘over my dead body’ attitude that they worked with,” he adds.
SEAN BRENNAN, ZENIMAX
PRIOR to the launch of Xbox 360, Zenimax was a small games business with one developer. Fast- forward a generation, and the publisher now has seven studios and a multitude of blockbuster brands including Falloutand Elder Scrolls. Sean Brennan is the man in charge of the firm’s European HQ, and has overseen the launch of these record-breaking games and Zenimax’s transition into a publishing behemoth.
SARAH SEABY, BETHESDA
BETHESDA’S UK PR and marketing boss has some impressive launches under her belt. In 2011 she brought the huge RPG title Skyrimto stores, and won an award at the 2013 MCV Awards for the launch of new IP Dishonored. At the moment she is working behind the scenes on Bethesda’s busiest line up in a long time featuring the likes of The Elder Scrolls Online, Wolfensteinand The Evil Within.
10 March 28th 2014 SERHAD KORO, TAKE TWO
UNDER the guidance of Koro, Take-Two enjoyed a stellar 2013 in the UK. Not only did he help launch two of the biggest titles of last year – Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto Vand Irrational’s Bioshock Infinite– but through GTA, he has helped put the UK development scene on the map on a global scale. With GTA V, Koro’s Take- Two showed the world what video games were capable of being as an entertainment commodity.
www.mcvuk.com
WHENit comes to retail, Activision is one of the best. Stackhouse’ career in sales resulted in Call of Dutybecoming the most widely distributed game in history, and Skylandershas been a popular product on the High Street since its launch. That success made Stackhouse the No.1 choice to become the managing director of Activision Blizzard for UK and Ireland, a position he took in February last year.
SPENCER CROSSLEY, WARNER BROS
BACK in 2008 when Spencer Crossley joined the Warner Bros UK games team, the publisher was ranked 18th in the country. Today, it is No.6. The firm’s LEGO series continues to defy expectations with over 1.3m games sold over the last 15 months, and the publisher has just enjoyed a bumper February thank to the LEGO Movie Game. Crossley has been at the heart of Warner’s transformation into a gaming giant.
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