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SAN FRANCISCO - October 26, 2012 - DeNA Co., Ltd. (TSE: 2432), a global internet company and worldwide mobile social games leader, today announced Clive Downie as CEO, ngmoco. Founders Neil Young and Bob Stevenson will be moving on to their next adventure and turning over operations to Downie, their trusted colleague of several years, who most recently was head of studios for ngmoco. Young, who had served as CEO since ngmoco's founding, will remain on the DeNA board of directors at this time and fully support the executive transition.
"Over the last several years, I've had the opportunity to run many different parts of our organization, which has afforded me full visibility into our operations," Downie said. "As we move into our next stage of growth, with our business starting to fire on all cylinders here in the West, I'm incredibly excited about our prospects and our mission to become the number one social mobile platform company in the world."
Prior to being named CEO, Clive Downie helmed multiple aspects of ngmoco's business including marketing and live teams, and most recently he was head of studios. Before joining ngmoco, Downie spent more than 15 years at Electronic Arts, where he served as Vice President of marketing, managing some of the world's most successful videogame franchises. He has also held management positions at Mattel, Inc., running global consumer product brands. As CEO, Downie will be responsible for ngmoco, as well as all Western operations of Mobage, the company's mobile social games platform.
"As our Western business moves from its platform building and global integration phase to awareness building, publishing and operating a robust portfolio of games that entertain the world, Clive's talents and understanding of our business make him the perfect person to drive Mobage in the West," Isao Moriyasu, CEO, DeNA, said. "We couldn't be happier that Clive, our long time colleague and friend is taking the reins of the Western business by becoming the new CEO," Neil Young added. "Our confidence in Clive and the momentum of DeNA's business in the West makes this the right moment for us to move on to our next adventure."
DeNA has built a quiet storm in the West with a catalog of 77 games across genres and platforms that have been top grossing hits in many countries' app stores. Most recently, Cygames' Rage of Bahamut, released on Mobage, has maintained its top grossing spot on Google Play for more than five months straight and the game has been in the top ten grossing charts on the App Store since July; DeNA's Blood Brothers has been one of the top five grossing games on Google Play for the past five weeks, and at least five Mobage games have consistently been in the top grossing 25 games on Google Play. DeNA has also signed massive multi-year licensing deals with global toy and entertainment companies to bring beloved franchises to Mobage.