EA’s Nick Earl Joins Kabam as New President of Studios

Kabam, the leader in the western world for free-to-play mobile games for traditional players, today announced it has hired Electronic Arts veteran Nick Earl as the President of Kabam Global Studios. In his new role, Earl will oversee development of all Kabam’s first-party mobile games, including original titles and those developed in partnership with Hollywood studios.

Earl will lead game development throughout all of Kabam’s worldwide offices including San Francisco, Vancouver, Canada and Beijing.

“Nick Earl is the perfect choice to drive the next phase of Kabam’s evolution and growth,” said Kabam Co-Founder and CEO and recent Fortune magazine “40 Under 40” honoree Kevin Chou. “Nick’s deep experience creating AAA titles will help Kabam continue to redefine what mobile games can be.”

A twenty-year game industry veteran, Earl joins Kabam from Electronic Arts, where he was senior vice president of EA Mobile. There, he oversaw development of all of Electronic Arts’s free-to-play hits such as The Simpsons™: Tapped Out, The Sims™ FreePlay and Real Racing 3, and led the company’s transition from premium to free. Prior to EA Mobile, Earl was senior vice president of EA Games launching such console franchises as Knockout Kings, James Bond, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings and Dead Space.

“Kabam is increasingly delivering console-quality game experiences on mobile devices,” said Earl. “I am thrilled to help drive the future of Kabam’s first-party games and the future of the entire gaming industry.”

Kabam has strengthened its role as the leader in free-to-play games throughout the last year with a number of high-profile executive hires from Electronic Arts and other firms, a significant financial investment, and new partnerships with Hollywood studios.

Kabam’s evolution to console-quality AAA mobile games has attracted world-class executives to the company. In June, Kabam hired Aaron Loeb, another senior Electronic Arts executive, as its senior vice president of North America studios. Within the last year, Electronic Arts executive Jordan Edelstein joined Kabam as vice president of Marketing. Additionally, Kabam has added Chris Petrovic as head of corporate development from Gamestop; Paxton Cooper, Jr. as senior vice president of platform from Mozilla; and Doug Inamine as senior vice president, people from data storage leader Xyratex.

In August Kabam announced a strategic partnership with Alibaba, which included a $120 million investment from the Chinese e-commerce giant to help drive Kabam’s expansion into Asia.

Kabam also continues to partner with the biggest Hollywood studios to develop games based on blockbuster entertainment properties including: The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Fast & Furious, as well as Marvel Contest of Champions.