Ok first of all the name is comedy gold, come on, Rod Humble, as Laetizia Coronet pointed out on Twitter:
“There is an odd contradiction in the name Rod Humble. Like Biggie Smalls.”
However it’s not fair to judge a book by the cover….and when I stop giggling like a schoolboy I’ll compose myself to write a proper entry ….nearly there….ok ok.
Rod Humble has been appointed the new CEO of Linden Lab, as announced here as a press release and here on the blogrum. Mr Humble arrives from Electronic Arts, as did Kim The New Marketing Linden, which makes one wonder if there’s a special website for EA employees to seek out new positions at Linden Lab….moving on.
Mr Humble has a twenty year gaming background and previously occupied the position of Executive Vice president at Electronic Arts and headed EA Play, of which The Sims was a product….. LL still need to give Will Wright a job….or Ron Gilbert, Ron Gilbert would be ace …I’m getting sidetracked.
Mr Humble also worked for Sony Online Entertainment and where he headed the Everquest studio. However not content with working for others, he also dabbles in game creation:
In the press release Philip Rosedale is quoted as saying:
“Second Life has become a consistently large and profitable business with a thriving virtual economy built together with its passionate Resident community. This has always been a big, long-term vision, it is still early and there is enormous opportunity for growth. With Rod’s fresh insights and deep experience in creating and leading the development of fun, intuitive, immersive entertainment experiences that have attracted massive audiences of loyal users, he’s the right leader to understand what makes us special and bring the next level of growth to Second Life.”
The big challenge for Rod is to avoid using the word “Passionate” when talking about residents, passionate is soooo 2009, Philip is forgiven because he sort of left when passionate was still probably cool.
So this is an impressive CV in many ways, although I’m sure there will be lots of cries of “Second Life is not a game”. which is of course true, but within Second Life many games are played. However as CEO, I doubt he will be developing inworld games, he will be leading strategy and development of Second Life and we will all be waiting with interest to see where that strategy and development takes us.
Mr Humble will begin work in mid January, although I wouldn’t expect to see much evidence of his strategy for quite a few months after that, it will be interesting to read what his plans are. This is encouraging news, the proof will of course be in the pudding and time will be the judge of how this all pans out, but I for one welcome our new overlord.
Hopefully he will listen, this is such an important concept but appears all too often to be overlooked, if LL would listen we wouldn’t have the teen merger iceberg right ahead of us, it would be a solid and sensible path that lay ahead in that direction, that will be a bumpy introduction for Mr Humble but I certainly wish him well.