Californian MMO publisher Gazillion Entertainment has snapped up the services of industry veteran Stuart Moulder, a former General Manager of Microsoft Game Studios.

Moulder joins Gazillion as Vice President of Studios, responsible for the overall management of the firm’s four owned-but-independent developers.

The industry veteran has over 20 years of experience in the business, starting out at Sierra On-line before working at Microsoft Game Studios as GM for eight years.

It was at MSG where Moulder had acquired and managed talent for developers such as Bungie and Ensemble. He did however move on from his role, and joined Seattle-based DVD game group Screenlife.

"Stuart is widely recognized as an industry leader with a wealth of experience managing teams who have developed multiple blockbuster titles," said Rob Hutter, CEO of Gazillion.

Moulder said he was excited by the prospects of joining Gazillion, and added that "the mass market MMO space is adding new gamers at a stunning pace and, with the team and titles already in place at Gazillion, the company is well positioned to contend for leadership within the market space in the years ahead."