Peter Moore, one feels, has really seen it all.
An executive whose career has straddled the world of sports, clothing and video games, Moore has held roles at companies such as Sega, Microsoft and EA – and has been speaking to The Game Business about his years in the industry.
I'd highly recommend you read the full interview, but one part of it stands out to me as especially interesting, as it shows how the high-flying Brit was prepared to leap into the firing line to defend his companies:
"At EA we were voted, two years in a row, the worst company in America, because of the end of Mass Effect.. This is when BP is polluting the Gulf of Mexico. Bank of America has brought down the global economy with subprime mortgages. But fucking Commander Shepherd dies in Mass Effect 3, and that makes us the worst company in America. At that point, I jumped on Twitter. I start engaging with gamers and all of the baggage that comes with that. I felt it was the best way to figure out how we could humanize the face of EA."
Moore would leave EA to join Liverpool, his boyhood football club, as CEO, and says he tried to apply the same tactics in that role – but was shut down by the club's owners:
"I took that lesson of being the face and the ability to engage with gamers to football. Gamers are volatile, and football fans are volatile. I felt that not being cold and distant, which the football club was with absentee American owners, was the way to go. My American owners did not agree. They did not like the fact that I engaged with fans on social media. They felt it was unstatesmanlike."
The full interview is well worth a look, and touches upon Moore's time at Sega and his frosty relationship with former Sonic Team leader and convicted criminal Yuji Naka.