CEO News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The CEO of streaming platform Twitch, Dan Clancy, has publicly spoken about the company’s recent layoffs, and revealed that right now, “we aren’t profitable.”

Amazon is losing money on Twitch, according to its CEO. Speaking in a livestream Q&A, Twitch boss Dan Clancy says that the site isn't profitable right now, failing to make money for its parent company, Amazon.

Shuji Utsumi has been named president/COO and CEO of Sega America and Europe.

Qualcomm was reportedly able to leverage an exclusive agreement with Microsoft where only the San Diego company’s chipsets would be used with any OEM launching a Windows notebook. However, we could be heading into a new era as, according to ARM CEO, the agreement between the two companies will expire later this year, giving other chipset makers an opportunity to penetrate this market and offer more options to customers.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has admitted the Amazon-owned streaming platform isn't profitable.

Twitter (which goes by X now), has been on a whirlwind journey in the last couple of years. Back in 2021, then-CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down and was replaced by CTO Parag Agrawal. However, his tenure was short-lived as billionaire Elon Musk took over the microblogging platform just a year later, sparking a mass exodus of employees from the company. Since then, the myriad of changes has included new features and a complete rebranding to X. Meanwhile, not much was known about ousted CEO Parag Agrawal's fate. But that's not the case anymore, as Agrawal is back with an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that has already raised $30 million in funding that is led by Khosla Ventures.

When Bumble Inc. announced that its founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, would step down as chief executive officer, analyst and press reports painted her as a “great visionary.” Her successor, former Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce Inc. executive Lidiane Jones, who took on the job last week, got dubbed a “strong operator.” This has long been the plight of the professional CEO. They are the boring “tech industry veteran” while the founder they succeed gets to be the “high-level thinker.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman may have gone through a huge crisis after being fired and re-appointed within days, but he is not letting any grass grow under his feet as far as his personal life is concerned. Social media is all agog about Altman marrying his partner Oliver Mulherin today. While no official word has come from any source so far, a few photographs are going viral on X/Twitter indicating the deed is done. These photos were reportedly shared by Mulhorin, but that is not confirmed. In fact, there is still no official confirmation about the marriage at all except what is going viral on the web.

Bloober Team's CEO, Piotr Babieno, has confirmed that news on the long-awaited Silent Hill 2 remake is expected to start being shared by Konami "very soon".

Amazon-owned Twitch have announced that they will lay off "just over 500" people - almost 35% of their workforce - in the course of on-going plans to "rightsize our company", with CEO Dan Clancy conceding that the streaming service has been operating based on "where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we're at today."

Shuji Utsumi has been appointed President and COO at Sega, as well as Representative Director CEO of Sega of America, and CEO of Sega Europe.

Konami is preparing a marketing campaign for the Silent Hill 2 remake which should begin soon, judging from some recent comments

Sega has announced some significant restructuring at the top of its western business’ hierarchy. Shuji Utsumi, who had been serving as Sega of Japan’s co-COO and the head of its game contents and services umbrella, has been appointed as the new President, CEO, and COO of Sega America and Sega Europe. He will take on his new role on April 1.

NVIDIA has announced a giveaway of its brand new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GPU and this one is signed by its CEO, Jensen Huang.

Nintendo announced in November that it had partnered with Sony Pictures to produce a live-action film based on The Legend of Zelda (much to the surprise of the sizeable contingent of fans who had been expected an animated film), and at Sony’s recent CES 2024 press conference, we got the briefest of updates based on the movie.

Cyberpunk 2077 came out on December 10, 2022, nearly three years ago. It was a mess at launch, so bad in fact that it was pulled from the PlayStation store amidst an influx of refund demands. CD Projekt Red got to work on updating the game to fix the myriad problems plaguing performance, while also working to introduce some of the key promises absent in the final game such as a working metro, ultimately delaying DLC plans.

It’s always nice to think that certain industries are “above harassment” or other things that have weighed down our world. But, sadly, that faith is rarely rewarded. The places and companies that should be the most “sound of mind” sometimes turn out to be the most corrupt or have some of the most hate-filled people around. For example, the video game industry is full of horror stories about the working conditions of certain places and the abuses made by those in power. And that says nothing about gamers themselves. But in the case of Activision Blizzard, they had an issue that was so grand that it resulted in several lawsuits, and those suits keep on coming.

Swen Vincke, the CEO and founder of Larian Studio (developer of Baldur's Gate 3) has taken to Twitter to share some progress on his next game—namely, he thinks he's got a solid draft going.

OpenAI boss Sam Altman will not appear at the CES trade show in Las Vegas next week. But the generative artificial-intelligence fever his startup set off last year will be on full display as gadget makers race to find consumer uses for the technology.

The Guardian Australia published an investigation several months ago into a crypto scheme-slash-scam called HyperVerse, a fund that used major celebrity endorsements to attract millions of dollars from small investors before collapsing. Blockchain Global went bust owing $58 million USD in 2021, but now there's a rather classic fraudster sting in the tail: The CEO who promoted this scheme doesn't seem to be a real person.

Late last year, Ramen VR announced that they will bring some major changes to Zenith: The Last City. Now, there’s a new devblog breaking down some of the changes and why they’re happening, along with a closed pre-alpha coming this weekend.

CD Projekt Red is one of the biggest developers in Europe, but the studio behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 has no interest in being acquired. That comes from a new interview with the studio’s CEO, Adam Kiciński, who discusses acquisition possibilities while providing small updates on the studio’s litany of upcoming projects.

Dotted around the internet are a multitude of silly images of Donald Trump. Here he is as a superhero, there he is as a cartoon warrior, and here he is playing basketball with a young Michael Jordan. The glossy look gives away these are AI-generated, but there's no denying the underlying message: Trump holds on to a kind of online cultural power and is still weirdly beloved. 

Square Enix's CEO wants to be "more aggressive" in applying AI to game development and publishing going forward.

Square Enix will be «aggressive in applying AI» and other «cutting-edge technologies» to its development and publishing functions.

In a persistent legal battle, medical device company Masimo remains unwavering in its fight against Apple over the alleged Apple Watch patent infringement. The lawsuit was won by Masimo, leading to temporary ban being slapped on Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. Tha ban has been lifted for till further notice.Masimo's CEO, Joe Kiani, recently shared the reason behind his dogged determination to pursue the Apple Watch patent lawsuit in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal, shedding light on his commitment to challenging the tech giant.

The recent Apple Watch sales ban in the U.S. was thanks to the efforts of Masimo, a health technology firm that claims Apple uses stolen technology in its latest smartwatch models. Though Masimo has found some measure of success against the most valuable company in the world, the journey has been harrowing, both mentally and financially, with CEO Joe Kiani stating that around $100 million has already been spent in its legal battle.

Last week Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair went live on twitch, showing off Soulframe in its pre-alpha “preludes” state. The stream lasted about an hour and showed off some of the early basics such as character models, world design, and combat.

This July, Blizzard announced it would bring back its games to Steam after several years of absence, beginning with Overwatch 2. However, the team-based first-person shooter game's debut on Valve's platform was marred by severe review bombing. Overwatch 2 actually became the lowest-rated game of all time on Steam when it first became available there. While the game isn't quite as popular as its predecessor, it still is a solid product that shouldn't be rated anywhere near as low. The main factor was the cancellation of the PvE mode, which angered fans due to the developer's broken promise, but that's not the whole story.

2023 in Review: Another year, another endless news cycle driven by the world's top corporate executives, with moments ranging from cringe-worthy to downright bizarre. While some CEOs seemed to relish the spotlight, Elon Musk chief among them, others were inadvertently thrust into social media's harsh glare. Elon Musk, Sam Altman to Marc Benioff, here are some of the most high-profile management misadventures:

In an end of year missive on the official Ashes of Creation Discord, CEO Steven Sharif shared his thoughts on the strides and popularity of Ashes of Creation while noting that all was not well with game development this past year.

Apple suffered a major blow in its executive headcount, as the technology giant’s chief iPhone designer, Tang Tan, is reported to have joined Jony Ive’s LoveFrom and work with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman to work on a brand new device focused on AI. Tan was also responsible for being one of the individuals responsible for designing the Apple Watch, and for the time being, no one has been named as his replacement at Apple.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently attended the Chinese American Semiconductor Professional Association (CASPA), where he also participated in a Q&A session and took questions from young professionals over a wide range of topics. Huang spoke about the age of AI, the right way to progress in your career in modern times, and why he does not wear a watch. He also spent time highlighting his own career and how he climbed to the position of the CEO of Nvidia. 

At about 1 a.m. California time in 2013, a scientist emailed Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook with an irresistible pitch. “I strongly believe that we can develop the new wave of technology that will make Apple the No. 1 brand in the medical, fitness and wellness market,” he wrote in the email, which was later included in legal documents. Some 10 hours after the message was sent, an Apple recruiter was in touch. And just weeks after that, the engineer was working at the tech company on a smartwatch with health sensors.

MediaTek previously announced that it has successfully developed the 3nm SoC with TSMC, making it 32 percent more power-efficient than previous-generation silicon, though the exact name of the chipset was not mentioned. Now, the Taiwanese company’s CEO has spoken about the close partnership with its foundry partner, stating that both entities are working together to launch its first 3nm product, which is rumored to be called the Dimensity 9400.

2023 has been nothing short of a nightmare for security researchers. While the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have increased productivity and helped users in their day-to-day lives, the technology has also been misused by threat actors to defraud people and carry out other illicit activities. There have been many instances of hackers masquerading as eminent persons in videos. In a recent case, a deepfake video surfaced on YouTube, showing the fake CEO of Ripple convincing people to double their crypto investments. Know all about it.

It's 15 years since Sweden's Spotify Technology SA, co-founded by Daniel Ek, launched its music streaming service as a legal all-you-can-eat middle ground between online piracy or paying $20 for an album. At the time, the music industry was slashing jobs and struggling with the MP3's rise: In the digital domain, “copies are not just cheap, they are free,” technologist Kevin Kelly wrote in 2008. 

It has hardly been an easy journey for Apple CEO Tim Cook ever since he succeeded Steve Jobs as the head of the now trillion-dollar company, but for all his efforts, the Chief Executive has been rewarded financially for it. According to the latest data, Cook is currently worth $2 billion and has a few million Apple shares to his name, which are equivalent to millions in monetary value.

Intel's CEO has expressed confidence in its 18A process, claiming that it competes favorably with TSMC's 2nm node while also being delivered earlier.

Intel and many other tech companies have amassed against NVIDIA in a "War of Words" claiming that the green team's AI success came from "Luck". However, NVIDIA says that the company's success is attributed to clear vision and execution which Intel lacked.

Masimo Corp. Chief Executive Officer Joe Kiani, head of the medical device maker that has put Apple Inc.'s smartwatch on the brink of a US ban, said he'd be open to settling with the company. 

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

After a 32-year career, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is officially stepping down next week, with his last day at the company being Friday, December 29. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a series of key leadership changes as it works to bring Activision Blizzard into Xbox's fold.

Microsoft has announced that Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, will be stepping down on December 29th. Instead of a replacement, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra and Activision publishing president Rob Kostich will report to Microsoft Gaming game content and studios president Matt Booty, per The Verge. Activision Blizzard vice chair Thomas Tippl is also leaving in March 2024 but reports to Booty till then.

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Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will leave the company on December 29 after 32 years, and remaining Activision Blizzard executives such as Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra, Activision Publishing president Rob Kostich, and Activision Blizzard vice chairman Thomas Tippl will be overseen by Microsoft Gaming game content and studios president Matt Booty.

Upon the formal close of the merger between Activision and Microsoft this past October, Kotick shared his commitment to remain with his company as CEO during a transition period through the end of 2023. That day is now soon to come, as long time Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has released a new message to employees saying goodbye to the company he led over the past 32 years. His last day will be December 29th, 2023.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has announced he’s stepping down from his position on December 29. The news comes two months after Microsoft officially completed its acquisition of the developer/publisher. 

Perhaps the most controversial executive in the history of the video game industry is stepping down by the end of the year. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has long been a divisive figure for his aggressive and abrasive style, but his image took an even worse beating when he was personally implicated in the workplace misconduct allegations that roiled Acti-Blizz back in 2021. Despite that, he hung on, negotiating the $69 billion sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft. Throughout the process Microsoft and Xbox boss Phil Spencer have remained mum on what Kotick’s fate may be once the sale was completed.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has taken a shot at his main rival in high performance computing, dismissing Nvidia's success in providing GPUs for AI modelling as «extraordinarily lucky.» Gelsinger also implied that it would have been Intel, not Nvidia, currently coining it in AI hardware had the company not killed one of his pet projects nearly 15 years ago.

Playstation CEO Jim Ryan has recently sold a certain number of shares of his stock in the Sony.

With developer Studio Wildcard still working to turn around player sentiment on the recently released Ark Survival Ascended, the boss of its parent company has insisted Ark 2 is still on track for a late 2024 release window.

A violation of Masimo’s patents has resulted in various Apple Watch models getting banned in the U.S., though their sales will not be halted until December 21. Both companies have had a long history, as the health-focused technology corporation filed the lawsuit in 2020. However, according to the latest findings, Masimo appears to be on a vendetta against the Califoria-based giant, and his efforts in getting the Apple Watch banned in the U.S. have cost him around $60 million, but his reason for going against one of the largest entities in the world may not be misguided, as talked about in the latest rumor.

When I played Baldur's Gate 3 back in the autumn, I decided to roll with a Dark Urge Paladin, and it was such a fascinating experience that I wrote a whole article about it. But to give you the notes, combining a class that's sworn to abide by justice with a character who just flippin' loves murder creates an incredible internal conflict, leading to a character arc which, for me, felt like the closest you could come to a canonical playthrough of BG3.

Fortnite (a game which by all accounts probably doesn't need the help) could come to Steam, but on one condition: the platform does away with its 30% cut.

If you were hoping that Baldur's Gate 3's arrival on Xbox would herald its inclusion on Game Pass for prospective console and PC players, it looks like you're out of luck. Larian's impressive RPG will continue to only be available if you're willing to shell out—but I promise you it's worth it. In my Baldur's Gate 3 review, I gave it one of our highest ever scores of 97%. 

Swen Vincke, Baldur’s Gate 3 director and CEO of Larian Studios, recently offered his condolences to the massive group of Wizards of the Coast workers affected by Hasbro’s latest round of layoffs, drawing specific attention to the fact that nearly everyone at the company who was part of early discussions about the Dungeons & Dragons-based game is now gone.

Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian decided "from the get-go" that the mammoth RPG wouldn't be coming to Xbox or PC Game Pass, and that isn't going to change.

Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has called out NVIDIA's CUDA being a shallow moat and that the entire industry is motivated to end its dominance in the AI market.

Fortnite on Steam isn't out of the question, according to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, but it would require big changes to the way store owner Valve monetizes sales – namely a cut to what Sweeney calls "these ridiculous 30% fees."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just dropped a short video on X (formerly Twitter) where he highlighted the achievements of the company in the artificial intelligence division. In the ‘Pace of AI innovation in 2023' video, he provided a few examples where organizations used AI tools by the company to make a positive impact on the world. Microsoft launched Copilot earlier this year, powered by OpenAI's GPT technology, and used it to build its own AI products for enterprises. In the span of just a few months, Microsoft has built several partnerships with businesses across the globe where companies are using its AI systems to build consumer-centric products, he revealed.

During this year's The Game Awards 2023 event, Baldur's Gate 3 won The Game of the Year award, and here's what the CEO of developer Larian Studios wanted to say when accepting this precious award.

Having swept at The Game Awards (TGAs) this year, including taking home Game of the Year (GOTY), you’d think the organizers would have given Swen Vincke, Larian Studio’s CEO and director of Baldurs Gate 3, a bit more time to thank the team and community. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

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The CEO of Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games’ parent company, says AI will help studios produce higher-quality games. However, he doesn’t believe it will make game development faster or cheaper.

Tim Sweeney finally has a win.

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke has taken to Twitter today and—in a thread celebrating both Baldur's Gate 3's numerous awards and runaway success—mentions the recent layoffs occurring at Dungeons & Dragons. He reveals that, «of the people who were in the original meeting room, there’s almost nobody left.»

Swen Vincke, the CEO of Larian Studios, has shared what he wanted to say in his acceptance speech at The Game Awards.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the Electronic Entertainment Expo — better known as E3 — has been permanently shut down, following its cancellation in 2020, 2022, and 2023 (and shift online in 2021). Now, Stanley Pierre-Louis, the president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which organized E3, has spoken more about the reasoning behind the decision.

Trainwrecks aren't exactly rare in the gaming industry, but it's rare that they're this spectacular. After a suspiciously-polished trailer, The Day Before quickly became one of Steam's most wishlisted games. 

It wasn't long ago that Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney had to announce a significant reduction in the company's workforce, firing 16% of the employees (around 830 in total). The news caught everyone by surprise, as the company's pockets had been filled by loads of revenue generated by Fortnite as well as the increasingly successful Unreal Engine licensing program.

was stealth-dropped onto Xbox Series X|S during The Game Awards last night, and it seems like this is because Larian Studios’ CEO Swen Vincke forgot to make the announcement. Vincke was meant to mention the release during an award acceptance speech, but he failed at his “one job” and left several people confused in the process.

G7 leaders forge historic international rules for generative AI; Tech giants fail to deliver on ethical AI promises, according to a Stanford report; Amazon CEO foresees transformative impact of generative AI on customer experiences; New York partners with intuition robotics to combat senior loneliness with AI companions- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

GameStop has acknowledged its decision to oust former president and CEO Matthew Furlong could backfire.

PlayStation has made a one-of-a-kind PlayStation 1-style PlayStation 5, and unfortunately, you cannot buy it, but that won't stop us from dreaming of it.

Jim Ryan was gifted a one-of-a-kind PS5 from PlayStation as a parting present, and I can't help but want one.

Twitch will officially be closing down services in South Korea at the beginning of next year due to high operating costs. 

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., taking aim at a burgeoning market dominated by Nvidia Corp., unveiled new so-called accelerator chips that it said will be able to run artificial intelligence software faster than rival products.

Following reports in November that Free Radical Design, the UK-based developer tasked with resurrecting TimeSplitters, would be next on the Embracer chopping block, CEO Lars Wingford has acknowledged the studio's precarious position. While the company has said nothing publicly yet, VGC reports that employees received a company-wide email from Wingford, which paints things in a fairly stark light:

Despite being one of the biggest streaming platforms in the world, Twitch has more than its share of problems. Recently, the company announced 180 employees were being laid off, and now it’s having to cease operations in Korea.