EA free-to-play studio GM leaves to head Ngmoco Sweden studio

Yet another EA executive has left the company for a competitor in the casual/free-to-play games industry. This time, former general manager of EA's free-to-play developer Easy Studios, Ben Cousins (pictured), has left to lead Ngmoco's Sweden studio in the making. According to Gamasutra, Cousins left EA back in March of this year, and just now has announced his association with Ngmoco's upcoming Stockholm studio, which will focus on global free-to-play titles for DeNA's Mobage Network.

The games industry is at an inflection point," Cousins explained to Gamasutra. "These platforms are bringing hundreds of millions of new gamers into the fold, and at the same time existing core gamers are discovering the innovation, immersion and connectivity they bring." This is the third time in just under two months that a former EA executive has left the company and later joined a competing free-to-play games provider.

Even Bing Gordon, former EA CCO and now an investor in Zynga, has shared his personal advice for the giant to survive amidst the rapidly shifting games scene. Times are uncertain for everyone in social games. While EA has enjoyed a distant second to Zynga for some time when it comes to Facebook games (and possibly even in wealth), it stills holds some valuable brands like Monopoly and its EA Sports games. So, all is far from lost. Though, it might be time to consider Bing's business-wise words.

Battlefield maker EA DICE loses three to ngmoco's Sweden studio

A new year can often be a bittersweet experience, especially in the world of career moves. In this case, it's been sweet for DeNA-owned mobile game maker ngmoco and rather bitter for EA. DICE, the Swedish division of the veteran games publisher responsible for hit shooter franchise Battlefield and critically-acclaimed Mirror's Edge, has lost three staffers to ngmoco Sweden.

This is the second, third and fourth loss for EA to ngmoco in six months, the first being former EA-ran Easy Studios general manager Ben Cousins, who left in June 2011 to start the Stockholm-based studio. Cousins announced the new hires through his Twitter account, name-dropping senior programmer Torbjørn Lædre, senior artist Wille Wintertidh and senior programmer Malte Hildigsson.

Collectively, the trio have experience with successful hardcore EA games ranging from the brand new Battlefield 3 to Mirror's Edge and Far Cry 2. Ngmoco Sweden has been keen on recruiting talent from traditional game developers, having snagged members of Crytek, German creator of the visually-stunning Crysis series, last year.

Ngmoco, largely responsible for bringing Japanese social game giant DeNA's mobile social games network, Mobage, to the Western world, is likely staffing up its Sweden studio to fill the network up with original games. Whether those games will skew toward shooter fans or folks who dig FarmVille is uncertain, but the lot it's hiring suggests the former.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

Do you think ngmoco and DeNA will find success in the U.S. and abroad? Which mobile social game network do you prefer when playing smartphone games, if one at all?