Facebook Seeking Head Of Games Partnerships

Looking to strengthen its game offerings and ties with developers, Facebook has put out a call for a "Head of Games Partnerships" to build and lead a team dedicated to the social network's gaming operations. The manager who ends up taking this senior level position will report to Facebook Developer Network director Ethan Beard and will "develop and enhance successful partnerships and influence internal and external partners and industry stakeholders in the gaming industry." The eventual Games Partnerships head will serve as the primary point of contact for both large, established gaming companies (e.g. Zynga and Electronic Arts/Playfish) and venture-backed start-ups working with Zynga, and will also support new partners through the launch process. Facebook's platform manager Gareth Davis is already tasked with managing the site's games-related business under Beard, but it's not yet clear how he will work with the Games Partnerships head or if he will be part of the social network's Games team. The company revealed last month that it's devoting more resources to social games and creating a team that will exclusively work with game developers, similar to its groups dedicated to specific functions on Facebook such as "Photos" and "Events." "Gaming is very popular on Facebook and important for us," said Beard in an interview with VentureBeat. "Hundreds of millions of our users are playing games. We continue to invest resources in teams and product necessary to make our platform a good one for game developers and gamers." He adds, "[As] social game companies have grown up, we have to evolve what our team looks like as well."