Atari appoints John Burns as General Manager for Europe

London, United Kingdom —œ April 15, 2010 —œ Atari, a global interactive entertainment company, announced today the appointment of John Burns as its Vice President and General Manager for Europe. With more than 20 years of games industry experience Burns will be responsible for Atari commercial efforts in the region. The announcement was made by Atari, Inc. President and CEO Jim Wilson, to whom Burns will report.  

“John joins Atari at time when we are transitioning our business toward online while maintaining a focused retail business,” said Jim Wilson, President and CEO, Atari, Inc. “His multi-disciplined background, working with some of the industry most respected publishers as well as emerging online businesses at the forefront of technology, will serve Atari well as we forge forward with our growth strategy.”

 

“Atari has the key ingredients of a focused strategy, compelling intellectual property and consumer brand recognition to meet its global growth objectives,” said Burns. “’The European business needs to deliver strongly in order to contribute to that strategy and I will be looking to leverage my experience in building both packaged goods and online games businesses in order to help it do so.”

Most recently, Burns held the title of Senior Director, European Online Publishing for Electronic Arts (EA) in Guildford, UK.  While at EA, he was part of the Executive team that launched their global mobile division and subsequently moved to an online position where he oversaw the long term strategies for Digital Distribution, Massively Multiplayer Online gaming, Web and In-Game Advertising across Europe. During his tenure, EA released some of the industries most innvovative and successful online gaming experiences including Sims 3 for mobile, the EU leading D2C PC storefront EA Store and best ever selling Console Digital content in Battlefield 1943.

Prior to his positions at EA, Burns was a founding partner and managing director of GOI International, a sales and management consultancy firm.  Burns was also a founding partner and president at Digital Bros Entertaiment and EON Digital Entertainment, a global software publisher in the gaming sector prior to which Burns was European Managing Director of Activision.  Additionally, Burns has held various roles at Acclaim Entertainment, Bandai UK Ltd., and Sega Ozisoft.  He started his career in gaming at Atari Computers in Queensland, Australia.