Samantha Ryan has been named Senior Vice President, Development & Production, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, it was announced today by Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, to whom she will directly report.
Concurrent with this appointment, Jason Hall, who has served as Senior Vice President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment since its founding in 2004, will segue into a first-look videogame and feature film development deal through his wholly owned production company, HDFilms Inc.
In her new post, Ryan will have general oversight of WBIE's development and production teams and be responsible for guiding all of the company's games, whether they're based on original stories, Studio franchises or outside sources, from creation or acquisition through production. Ryan will work alongside Debra Baker, Senior Vice President, Operations, WBIE, who will now also directly report to Tsujihara.
Ryan joins WBIE from Warner Bros.' wholly owned game developer Monolith, where she has and will continue to serve as CEO. During her tenure at Monolith, she produced the acclaimed "No One Lives Forever series before moving into senior management. Ryan has also worked in entertainment marketing for such clients as Infinity Broadcasting and the Singapore Broadcast Corporation in southeast Asia and has worked on promotional campaigns for the Miller Brewing Company and Frito-Lay.
"We're extremely fortunate to have Samantha take the helm at WBIE, said Tsujihara. "She has worked with us since Monolith was one of our important production studios and has continued to do so since we acquired the company. We have always been impressed with Samantha as an executive, a game developer and as a person and we anticipate this being about as seamless of a transition as one could hope for.
"That being said, Tsujihara continued, "I want to personally thank Jason for sharing his vision in this business and literally putting Warner Bros. on the map in the game space. His creativity, enthusiasm and drive have brought us a long way in a very short amount of time and I'm pleased that he will remain an influential creative resource for us in this area.
Hall will move from the executive ranks back to his creative/development roots as his production company, HDFilms Inc., furthers its existing relationship with the Studio via an overall first-look development deal for videogames and feature films. In this role, he'll serve as executive producer of key WBIE videogame titles and will continue to shepherd pre-existing and new HDFilms' projects in development for Warner Bros. Pictures.
Prior to joining WBIE in 2004, Hall had been Chief Executive Officer and a founder of Monolith for 10 years. Previously, he managed the multimedia department at Edmark Corporation and worked as a lead engineer at Broderbund Software. His experience also includes music composition and audio engineering.
WBIE is a premier publisher, licensor and developer of entertainment content for the interactive space across all current and future platforms, including consoles, PC-based gaming and wireless applications. WBIE's current production slate features games of every genre, drawing on both original and existing properties, including "300: March To Glory (to be released simultaneously with Warner Bros. Pictures'"300), "Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix licensed through EA, as well as the sequel to "F.E.A.R.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, WBIE established two key distribution agreements: The company made an investment in SCi Entertainment Group plc, the parent company of publishing label Eidos Interactive Ltd., which includes an agreement for licensing and distribution of games based on select Warner Bros. Entertainment properties; and entered into a videogame distribution agreement with Codemasters, Inc. for distribution and sales of its product in North America beginning in April 2007.
