Report: The Sims Social maker Playfish loses GM to venture capital firm

Actually, this sort of thing isn't all that uncommon in the games and tech world. Just ask Bing Gordon. TechCrunch reports that Playfish London GM and VP John Earner will leave the company and join venture capital firm Accel (a Playfish investor) as an entrepreneur in residence. Nameless sources reportedly tipped TechCrunch off, but no replacement for Earner was mentioned.

Earner joined Playfish in 2008 as its first game producer, went on to see games like Pet Society and Restaurant City launch and ultimately the $400 million acquisition of the studio by EA in late 2009. The Playfish alumnus's crown jewel, however, is The Sims Social, EA and Playfish's most successful and impressive social game to date.

However, the game has sadly been in sharp decline since late fall 2011, with 22 million monthly and 3.9 million daily players, according to AppData. That said, The Sims Social is still one of the top five games on Facebook, so it's safe to say that Earner would be leaving Playfish on a high note. At this point, the only remaining Playfish founder is CEO Kristian Segerstrale.

EA has lost executives left and right this past year, most recently EVP of business development Barry Cottle to Zynga. If it turns out the Earner has left Playfish, it's unknown who would replace him. Regardless, now that the social game maker has struck gold once, you can bet it'll stick around to see if it can strike twice.

[Via Inside Social Games]

Are you a fan of Playfish's games? What do you think this will mean for the studio if it goes down? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.