Moore and Gibeau promoted in EA reshuffle

EA CEO John Riccitiello has announced a number of promotions and a new label at the global publisher.

Writing on the company’s official blog, he has confirmed that Peter Moore is now Chief Operating Officer of EA, and Frank Gibeau will serve as President of the EA Labels.

Moore steps up from leadership of the EA Sports label, he was previously head of Xbox at Microsoft.

Gibeau was head of just EA Games, one of four EA labels. These are now: EA Games, EA SPORTS, EA Play and BioWare.

That last one is a key addition: the studio division BioWare, which has teams in Canada and the USA, plus a testing unit in Dublin, has become its own label. Presumably these are to better represent its games such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Meanwhile, Riccitiello also reconfirmed that Barry Cottle has been named head of EA Interactive, the part of the company that includes Playfish, Pogo, EA Mobile, our partnership with Hasbro, the online and mobile business in Asia and soon, PopCap”.
Cottle’s appointment was widely known prior to E3.

Riccitiello added: First, I think it’s a great reflection on EA that we are able to tap so much world-class leadership from within our own ranks. The depth of talent and leadership in this company is inspiring.

Second, as I look across EA and back on its history, I come to an important realisation. The people who succeed here are the ones who map their creative vision over a deep understanding of what our consumers want. Our Label structure reflects that strategy. It creates a close partnership between developers and product marketers that connects the creative process to our consumers.

This is an exciting time. The opportunities are growing exponentially and EA is growing and changing to capture them.”

Of course, keen EA watchers might wonder how, aside from the personnel promotions, the new label mix is much different from before – Riccitiello had restructured the company once before, with Sports, Games, Casual and The Sims labels. The latter two ultimately failed to survive, and were rolled together along with more mainstream titles from the Games label into EA Play.

Certainly, though, this restructuring looks geared to further support the long-term plan to push EA towards being a leader in the download and online gaming space.