The new senior executives add significant publishing and development power and expertise to Trion’s existing world-class team as the company gets ready to publish its first set of flagship server-based games.
"Both David and Scott are dream additions to the Trion team," said Lars Buttler, CEO, Trion World Network. "Their online gaming expertise and proven track record will help propel Trion ahead from technology development to content and publishing.”
David Reid, former president, publishing, NCsoft West, will lead Trion’s marketing, sales, corporate communications, brand management and market research. Reid brings with him more than a decade of successes in the games industry. During his tenure at NCsoft West, Reid led publishing efforts across six live MMO businesses and architected NCsoft’s North American and European launches for Aion. Before joining NCsoft, Reid served as vice president, marketing, for Turner Broadcasting’s GameTap, and led the Xbox 360 launch as Microsoft’s director of Xbox global platform marketing. Reid will be based in Redwood Shores and will report to the CEO.
"It is clear that we are at the beginning of a new era of game development and interactive entertainment,” said Reid. “Trion has brought together the technology and creative vision to deliver the new game world order and I am thrilled to be a part of bringing Trion’s portfolio to market.”
Joining Trion as the chief creative officer and general manager of the company’s Redwood Shores Studio is Scott Hartsman, who will take on responsibilities for the creative vision and implementation of Trion’s titles. Hartsman comes to Trion with more than 20 years of games industry experience and has contributed to more than 40 online products. Formerly an executive at Sony Online Entertainment among other online games companies, Hartsman brings to Trion his immense knowledge and skills in the development, deployment, and operation of online games. While at Sony Online Entertainment, Hartsman held key positions throughout the EverQuest franchise, including managing the massive EverQuest II team and successfully shipping more than a dozen EverQuest-related products across a variety of locales with monthly content updates. Most recently, Hartsman oversaw the development of MMOs for the exponentially growing social networking audience. Hartsman will be based in Redwood Shores and will report to Trion’s SVP Product Development, Nick Beliaeff.
“I am very excited to be working with the talented and dedicated team at Trion,” said Hartsman. “Trion is positioned extremely well to succeed in the next generation of online gaming. I’m happy to come on board in Redwood Shores to help deliver the most compelling MMO experiences and to collaborate with all of the Trion studios to introduce genre-leading games.”