Planet Moon's Ex-CEO Aaron Loeb Joins Playfish To Lead U.S. Branch

Electronic Arts-owned social game developer Playfish (Pet Society) announced its hiring of Aaron Loeb, previously the chief executive at Planet Moon Studios, as the new general manager of its San Francisco branch. Loeb has nearly 10 years of experience working in the games industry at Planet Moon, joining the developer in 2001 as a producer, then rising up the ranks to COO and eventually CEO. While he was there, he worked on more than a dozen titles like Infected, Smarty Pants, and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. He remained at the developer until earlier this year when Planet Moon ran into financial troubles and sought legal action against unnamed parties who owed it "a substantial amount of money". MMO company Bigpoint then stepped in to absorb all of Planet Moon's staff into its San Francisco studio. In his new position heading the UK-based firm's studio in San Francisco, Loeb will oversee the development of original and branded social games, and manage the "rapid expansion" planned for the branch. EA's Playfish is currently the second biggest social game developer on Facebook (behind Zynga) based on audience size with a total of more than 36 million monthly active players, according to AppData. Its popular titles include Pet Society, Monopoly Millionaires, and several EA Sports releases.