Report: Brash exec becomes Oddworld Inhabitant

Brash Entertainment may be foundering, but one of its ex-execs appears to have found a new home. The troubled publisher's former chief creative officer Larry Shapiro has landed at Oddworld Inhabitants, according to a Variety report.

Shapiro will be assuming the role of president, previously held by Oddworld cofounder Lorne Lanning. That should free up Lanning to focus on the company's creative endeavors, while other Oddworld cofounder Sherry McKenna continues in the role of CEO. According to the trade paper, Shapiro has a history with the company, having represented Oddworld for Creative Artists Agency back before he joined Brash.

Oddworld hasn't released anything since the early 2005 Xbox action game Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. Originally set to be published by Microsoft, that project was dropped by the Xbox manufacturer and picked up as part of the EA Partners program (the same initiative that distributes Rock Band).

Unfortunately, Stranger's Wrath didn't sell well, an announced PlayStation 2 edition never materialized, and Oddworld switched its focus to animated TV and film projects. That endeavor might not be going smoothly either; Variety reports that the announced Citizen Siege film deal (which was intended to have an accompanying game) went south due to the ever-threatening "creative differences."

As for Shapiro's previous employer, the exec apparently wasn't too pleased with his stint there, telling Variety that he wanted "to make Brash the Miramax or HBO of video games, but sales, marketing, and finance wanted it to be Majesco."

As of press time, an Oddworld representative had not returned GameSpot's request for comment.