Zynga Goes Hollywood by Adding Jeffrey Katzenberg to Its Board
The CEO of DreamWorks Animation will help Zynga with the convergence of Hollywood IP
Zynga is going Hollywood. The social gaming giant has added DreamWorks SKG co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg to its board of directors in an attempt to work more closely with Hollywood film and television properties. The San Francisco-based online game developer previously worked with DreamWorks on the 3D blockbuster Megamind, integrating the feature film into its Facebook hit FarmVille. Katzenberg talks about THQ’s Megamind video games in this exclusive video interview.
"Jeffrey redefined storytelling when he launched DreamWorks Animation," said Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus. "He turned an independent studio into a brand name, and his vision will be an asset as we work to define the future of play."
Zynga has recently opened its doors to Hollywood, which has been eager to tap into the 300 million people who play Zynga games on Facebook. The mainstream demographic that games on Facebook has allowed Nickelodeon to promote Rango in FrontierVille and Sony Pictures to target Mafia Wars gamers.
Katzenberg has been a champion of 3D movies and his studio has a solid library of family-friendly brands, including Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and Puss in Boots. Katzenberg co-founded DreamWorks SKG in 1994 with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, then spun off DreamWorks Animation into a separate company 10 years later. Prior to DreamWorks, he headed Disney's film and animation efforts for a decade.
"DreamWorks Animation is a revolutionary technology company, a recognized consumer brand, and at its core, a media company," said Pincus on Zynga's company blog. "It's easy to see the value that Jeffrey will add to Zynga as we grow and look for more ways to delight our players."
Bookmark/Search this post with
About the Author
John Gaudiosi
Editor-in-Chief
John Gaudiosi has been covering videogames for the past 17 years for outlets like The Washington Post, CNET, Wired Magazine and CBS.com. He has focused on the convergence of entertainment and videogames for outlets like Video Business, Home Media Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.TV and is also a freelance game columnist for Reuters and writes for outlets like Playboy Magazine, NVISION Magazine, GamePro Magazine, Official PlayStation Magazine, EGM Now, Maxim.com, AOL GameDaily.com, GeForce.com, and Yahoo! Games. John also serves as the video game expert for NBC in Washington D.C. John was named one of the Top 50 Game Journalists in the world by Next-Gen.biz in 2007. He is the co-author of Scholastic Books' How to Get into Videogames, Prima Publishing's Madden: Twenty Years of Videogame Football and Electronic Arts: The Official History.
Popular content
GamerLive.TV newsletter
Latest Videos
Like us on Facebook
