Xbox President Don Mattrick Leaving For Zynga - UPDATED

[rees263]

Wait guys, this makes perfect sense.

All those stupid comments and decisions to do with the Xbone, all the backlash at Microsoft, it's all been a plan to try and discredit consoles and hardcore gaming in an attempt to push everyone over to casual gaming. Just in time for Don to jump ship.

It's an inside job! No one is safe!

 

[faefrost]

Ah! It all becomes clear now! The whole XBox 180 thing was a conspiracy to destroy console gaming and force us all over to the side of cash shop Facebook games. Farmville4EVAH!!!!

No serriously, my money is on "he knows his days are numbered and he has a friend at Zynga who owes him a favor". or simply Zynga is the only game company that he didn't have any direct contact with and hence did not piss off.

 

[unstabLized]

... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Oh god, I can't, it's just.. AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! If this turns out to be true, it'll make my freaking month. This whole debacle with Mattrick and the Xbone has been just hilarious, but this is just icing on the top.. Ohhh man *Wipes away tear*. Thanks for making my day even better Escapist.. Phew.

 

[Angelous Wang]

Why is everyone assuming that Don Mattrick chose to leave?

Yeah I would expect he is being forced out, because people on his level have tend to have a non-compete clause.

So in order for him to be hired by ether Zanga or EA that clause would need to be waved by Microsoft (because technically "Microsoft Studios" which report to his company is also a games publisher, so they are competing).

Which companies do tend to wave when they fire people (because it would hurt the company in legal battle if he started one). The clause is more to stop people quitting.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Did he decide that he really enjoys fucking up and joined the most fuckingest up game company in the industry?

I think after having tried to screw people under the pretense of service, he's decided to throw caution to the wind and move to openly screwing at all screwable opportunities.

Alternatively, he is desperate to see his name attached to something else than that picture.

Captcha: words of wisdom... rofl.

 

[fix-the-spade]

It's an inside job! No one is safe!

No, you're confusing this with Phil Harrison, former director of Playstation Division, current higher up of Xbox...

 

[Jhooud]

Wouldn't you love to hear the conversations that have been happening over at Redmond? If you want to play the game of consoles, you win or you die.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Hypothetically...(it is just a rumor)

It's like a jilted cocaine dealer moving his operation.
Nobody wanted to buy his overpriced cuts in uptown so he's going across the river to peddle to the ghetto.

Or to translate my tortured analogy: I guess when the market rejected his bullshit DRM schemes on the Xbone, he threw a fit and is going to a company who is already infamous for being complete bullshit schemers.

I'd wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, but I want Zynga to burn so badly that I cannot.
(Unless his endeavor is to destroy Zynga, utterly, from within. In which case I wish him all the luck there ever was.)

 

[Griffolion]

First Sinofsky, and now Mattrick. What's with major players in MS leaving in the vicinity of major releases?

 

[klaynexas3]

Good, stash his idiocy away in the realm of casual games, those are already shit, nothing he does could make them any worse. It just fits for him to work for them, and it puts him outside the area of any actual good games.

 

[Jamous]

I believe the saying is 'like a rat leaving a sinking ship'. Too bad he jumped to another sinking ship. This just seems to be going horrendously.

 

[templar1138a]

EA would be a bad idea. Zynga would be perfect for him. After all, no one bats an eyelash over Zynga's douche baggery these days.

 

[tehroc]

Oh man, of all the places to jump ship to.

It's like jumping out of the frying pan into a giant pile of radioactive shit. That is also on fire. And about to crash into an iceberg.

It doesn't matter. US execs only thing about short term gains, he's gonna make bank if he makes the jump. CEOs can destroy corporations and jump ship with a golden parachute to the next corporation.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Good! Now put an ACTUAL gamer/programmer/business man in charge and lets make shit happen.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Well I think this is a sign that, if true, Mattrick doesn't have a clue about the current gaming industry. Maybe Zynga was his second choice after that lucrative position as CEO of Nokias N-Gage division?

 

[Johnson McGee]

What was the signing bonus? The promise to be able to embezzle anything left after the current Zynga staff were finished?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


OH WOW

I literally cried reading this. Tears of laughter.

This is video games equivalent of Will Smith turning down the role of Django to personally seek out M. Night Shayamalan to write and direct a movie for his son to star in.

This is absolutely ridiculous.


The only thing good about this for Mattrick is if the Xbox One flops he'll be on a different ship. A still sinking ship, but a different ship either way.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

So an asshole might be leaving a company prone to assholery, to go to another company prone to assholery, whilst another company prone to assholery was looking at hiring him?

This really explains a lot about why these companies behave like assholes.

 

[Pyrian]

I wonder if this constitutes failing upward?