paidContent - Industry Moves: EA's Louis Castle Leaves To Head Up Gaming Unit At IAC
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
Looks like Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) can’t stop the exodus of senior talent ... gaming vet Louis Castle has left to head up InstantAction, the online gaming unit of IAC (NSDQ: IACI). Castle is replacing CEO Josh Williams, who will move into the role of chief technologist.
Castle will oversee the launch of two new studios, and hopefully, provide InstantAction with a clear strategic direction. The gaming company launched last year with three separate business strategies: A 3D, high-quality online games portal for “core” gamers; GarageGames, an in-house studio that develops IP for consoles, PCs and the iPhone; and Torque, a game development platform that it licenses to indie developers.
Gaming companies that just have one revenue stream to maintain are struggling—so Castle has his work cut out for him with trying to grow InstantAction’s multi-prong approach. (For example, traffic to the InstantAction games portal is down nearly 68 percent from a high of nearly 300,000 uniques in November, per Compete).
But his more than two decades of experience in both core and casual gaming environments give him an advantage. Castle most recently served as VP of creative development for EA’s LA campus; he’d been working on the BOOM BLOX franchise, a puzzle action game (created in conjunction with Steven Spielberg). Before that, he co-founded Westwood Studios, the studio behind the Command & Conquer franchise, which EA purchased in 1998. Release.
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By Tameka Kee