Zattikka Hires NCSoft, Sega Europe Vet As External Producer

London-based casual/social gaming start-up Zattikka announced its appointment of Jim McDonagh, who has worked at a variety of developers like NCSoft and Sega Europe, as external producer. McDonagh most recently served as an external producer at Sega Europe, where he worked with The Creative Assembly to release BAFTA award-winning strategy title Empire: Total War. Before that, he helped NCSoft develop several of the company's MMO games. He's also spent three years apiece at Ubisoft and Eidos Interactive. While at Zattikka, McDonagh is tasked with overseeing and shaping the studio's new talent and intellectual properties. The firm raised $5.5 million through its parent company Expedite last month, which it is investing in recruitment, research and development, and marketing to further expand its catalog of browser and mobile titles. Since its opening last year, Zattikka has grown its library to more than 100 titles, putting out at least two new games each week. The company's releases attract a total of more than one monthly unique users. The announcement of McDonagh's hiring follows a week after Zattikka revealed its hiring of Peter Jones, a Codemasters and Lionhead veteran who has worked in the games industry for 20 years, as its executive producer. "I’m delighted we’ve hired Jim, with his wealth of games industry experience, demonstrating our ability to attract high quality people into our expanding team," says Zattikka Founder and CEO Tim Chaney. "He will be pivotal in acquiring and managing the development of high quality games for our rapidly developing portal business."