PopCap's Canessa Heads To Blizzard As Battle.net Project Director

Greg Canessa, VP of video game platforms at Peggle house PopCap, has left the company to join World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment, PopCap has confirmed to Gamasutra. The news brings speculation as to what exactly Blizzard is up to that would require the talents and experience of Canessa. Prior to PopCap, Canessa was general manager of Xbox Live Arcade, another business with a heavy focus on casual, pick-up-and-play gaming that's generally different than the typical high-budget time-sinks that Blizzard is known for. PopCap PR man Garth Chouteau told Joystiq in a statement that "his move is largely predicated on it being a big personal and professional opportunity for him. This isn't going to have any material impact on our console presence and our strategy with respect to the consoles and the DS and the areas that Greg was heading up. We're still very committed to those." Chouteau subsequently confirmed the report to Gamasutra today. Canessa was with PopCap for nearly two-and-a-half years, and was with Microsoft for nearly seven. Joystiq's report cited an anonymous source who said Canessa is working on an unannounced online project. Gamasutra has contacted Blizzard for further comment, and will update with any new information. [UPDATE: Blizzard's Bob Colayco told Gamasutra in an email: "Yes, we can confirm that Greg Canessa has taken a position at Blizzard Entertainment as project director for Battle.net. He will report to our vice president of online technologies and work closely with the executive team to help fine-tune the next version of Battle.net, currently in development." Last week during Activision Blizzard's quarterly earnings call, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime described a Battle.net expansion which will "connect all future Blizzard games", with a centralized account system.]