Connie Booth, former executive at Sony, and arguably one of the founders of PlayStation, has now joined Electronic Arts.
As reported by IGN, EA Entertainment Head Laura Miele has shared a statement about her friend Connie’s new job:
“Connie spent more than 30 years helping to build Sony Interactive Entertainment’s internal studios and is responsible for guiding the development of some of their biggest franchises, including Marvel’s Spider-Man 1 & 2, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, to name just a few.
She is known for having created an incredible developer-first culture and supporting creative vision while driving innovation.
I have known Connie for many years and have always been impressed by her love and commitment to games. She especially cares about game developers. She has an impeccable reputation within the development community and will undoubtedly have a positive impact on our games.”
So, Laura herself has explained Connie’s importance to PlayStation and why this was an incredible hire for EA. Connie’s new position will be Group General Manager for Action RPG, and will be reporting directly to Laura. Among the games that Connie will manage in this new position are Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and the upcoming Iron Man and Black Panther games.
Some of the details may be different, but it certainly sounds like Connie has essentially been given the same role she had in PlayStation, but now to make games for multiple platforms, and arguably bigger stakes than what she had been used to when it was just pleasing Sony fans.
Sony and Connie herself have been reticent to explain her exit from the company, and Sony itself took days before they confirmed it. This lack of openness has opened the door for rumors on the situation to take root.
And so, the rumors go that Connie was unceremoniously fired, on the same day it was announced, and that it had something to do with Sony failing to get their live service games ready to launch. In particular, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Online was singled out as the biggest example for this. Connie worked closely with Naughty Dog for decades, and from when Naughty Dog started making games for Sony.
This all certainly sounds like a Sony story so far, but the truth is, this could mean really huge things for Electronic Arts. Connie’s experience will certainly be invaluable, as she will bring the experience that helped make Sony’s first party and second party games certified hits, to EA’s most popular AAA product, their action RPGs.
