Rumor: Zynga snags an EA executive, COO John Schappert

When you're competing against a monolithic company, you can't just buy them out like the rest. Though, no one ever said you can't buy out their employees. According to a Reuters report, Zynga has swept EA's chief operating officer, John Schappert, right from underneath the almost 30-year-old company's feet. The report cites "a source close to the matter," and mentions that a regulatory filing shows that the COO resigned from his EA position on Monday. (Geez, you'd think a major executive would take a little vacay every once in a while.)

This is far from the first time the Zynga has lured in an ex-EA senior employee. In 2009, the company took on former EA Los Angeles general manager Mike Verdu. And in 2010, Zynga reeled in Steven Chiang, who before that worked at EA Sports as vice president for a whopping 15 years. Colin Sebastian, an analyst for Lazard Captial Markets, says, "we see little near-term risk that the departure will impact EA's upcoming product releases."

The COO worked with EA for almost two years, and was a Microsoft employee for two more years prior, according to Reuters. Unfortunately, it's unknown what role Schappert might take on at Zynga. Regardless, this is certainly an about-face for Schappert, who just a year ago was preaching the good news of the triple-A games industry to VentureBeat. Perhaps, like all of us at times (because, you know, we're human), he saw bigger dollar signs elsewhere. We've contacted Zynga for comment.

[Via and Image Credit: SF Chronicle]

Do you think Schappert is smart to move from EA to Zynga? What do you expect he will be up to in his new home?

Xbox 360 cures gamers' loneliness, goes social in Dashboard update

Alright, so maybe they weren't lonely, but we'll bet that, after this Xbox 360 Dashboard update, players friends list will magically grow. Microsoft's Major Nelson, or Larry Hryb, made the announcement earlier this week that the next major Xbox update will hit Dec. 6 on his blog. Come the week after next, players will be able to share to Facebook straight from the Dashboard.

But the updates go a bit deeper with the addition of Beacons, which allow players to broadcast status updates to their friends that share what games they would like to play with anyone interested. These open call-outs for in-game teammates can be pushed to players' Facebook Walls too. Other changes include cloud storage for games, meaning more space on players' hard drives and access to games from any Xbox 360.

In a way, you could say that makes games more "social" as well, lowering the barrier to playing games with friends in person (IRL, if you will) ever so slightly. But we can't help but notice Microsoft's growing focus on social, and wonder if it's a response at all to the arrival potential game changers like these to Facebook. It may only a matter of time before that competition heats up.

[Via Inside Social Games]

Are you excited at all by these changes to Xbox gaming? Do you think Xbox-like games could ever be popular/successful on Facebook?