Another Zynga exec joins Betable
News on 18 Jan 2013
News on 18 Jan 2013
The haemorrhage of executives from social gaming giant Zynga has seen experienced managers snapped up by other companies in the social gaming sector, the latest being the appointment by Betable of Jonathan Flesher, a key manager in setting up Zynga’s UK real-money social gambling deal with Bwin.Party.
TechCrunch reports that Flesher will take up duties as Betable’s executive vice president of business development, a similar position to that which he held whilst employed by Zynga. His responsibilities include checking out and signing up developers, pushing licensing initiatives forward in other territories and putting together strategic partnerships.
Flesher is well qualified for his new post; in addition to his experience at Zynga he held a similar postion with EA prior to joining that company, and his cv also includes management activity in the banking and private equity sector in the United States.
He’s a firm believer in monetising social gambling, telling TechCrunch that developers who stay focused on virtual currency tactics could be outdistanced by those who go after real-money opportunities to develop lucrative player-bases and generate more funds for marketing:
“We’re seeing a convergence between the free-to-play social gaming world and the online gambling world,” Flesher said. “If you incorporate real-money gaming, you’ll get a higher lifetime value from your players, and then you’ll be able to outspend other companies in the space that aren’t doing real money gaming.”
San Francisco-based Betable, which has real-money gaming licenses in the U.K., provides an easily integrated back-end that lets casino-style social game developers add real money betting to their titles.
Because there are restrictions in some countries – the United States among them – Betable’s platform identifies which players they can legally show gambling-related features to based on their location or jurisdiction.
Last year Betable employed another Zynga refugee – former general manager of mobile operations, Ya-Bing Chu.
“Jonathan is well known in the industry for both his vision and ability to execute; we couldn’t be happier to have him join the Betable team,” said Christopher Griffin, founder and CEO of Betable.
