Two SCEE staff poached

The games industry can at times seem to be nothing but an oversized game of musical chairs. In the past year, Phil Harrison has left Sony to go to struggling veteran publisher Atari, Peter Moore has left Microsoft to head up EA Sports, and David Gardner left Electronic Arts to become CEO of Infogrames. This trend continued today with the departure of two staff from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, although at a markedly more junior level.

UK development and publishing house Codemasters was the first to break cover today, with a release confirming the appointment of Hal Bame as its director of distributor territories. Bame moved from SCEE, where he had been its distributor markets sales and marketing manager for five years.

Shortly after that, Microsoft joined the party, announcing the capture of Daniel Maher as Xbox Live Editor for Europe. He will be responsible for all European editions of Inside Xbox, Xbox Live's daily news magazine, and will oversee the service's European expansion during 2008; it is currently only available in the UK, US, Canada, and Japan.

Before joining Microsoft, Maher was an award-winning content producer at SCEE. According to Robin Truchy, director of Xbox LIVE Europe, "Daniel's background makes him inimitably qualified for the exciting plan of rolling out Inside Xbox across Europe."