日前，美国华纳兄弟影业公司宣布，任命格雷格·巴拉德（Greg Ballard ）为数码游戏部门的高级副总裁，这一人事变动足见华纳兄弟对在线游戏和数码发行领域的重视与日俱增。

Greg Ballard

巴拉德是游戏行业的资深元老，曾统领多家游戏或传媒公司的业务，担任过Transpera公司（手机视频广告网站）董事长，Glu Mobile（手机游戏公司）首席执行官，SonicBlue公司（数码录像机和音乐播放器制造商）董事长，3Dfx公司（图形芯片制造商，已被Nvidia公司收购）董事长，Warner Custom Music公司首席执行官、卡普空娱乐（Capcom Entertainment）总裁。

Lord of the Rings Online

对华纳兄弟这样的超级游戏巨头而言，数码领域已占据举足轻重的地位。据了解，华纳兄弟公司已有成百上千人投入《蝙蝠侠》（Batman）、《指环王》在线游戏（Lord of the Rings Online）的制作，正需要巴拉德这类王牌人物的加盟，以实现这一领域的重大突破。

据悉，巴拉德将向华纳兄弟数码发行总裁Thomas Gewecke、华纳兄弟互动娱乐总裁Martin Tremblay正式报到。他将负责监管该公司的全球数码游戏业务及发展战略，主要面向个人电脑、掌机、掌上移动设备等平台的社交网络游戏、视频游戏、手机游戏、大型多人在线游戏等内容。

巴拉德将接手基于Turbine技术的《指环王》在线游戏以及其他大型多人在线游戏等监管业务，聘请一名总经理负责运营Turbine大型多人在线游戏部门，并重新评估该公司的游戏内置广告、产品植入广告、虚拟商品交易等发展机遇。华纳兄弟互动娱乐总裁Tremblay表示，手机游戏与在线游戏在整个游戏产业中的地位已经不容忽视，因此华纳兄弟决定将数码业务这一重任委托给巴拉德这个游戏市场老手。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）

Warner Bros. taps industry veteran Greg Ballard to run digital games

Movie studio Warner Bros. is getting serious about online games and digital distribution. The company announced today it has hired video game industry veteran Greg Ballard as senior vice president of digital games for two of its divisions.

Ballard is a long time veteran of games who has worked in top executive positions, most recently as chief executive at Transpera, a mobile video ad network. Before that, he was CEO at Glu Mobile, a publicly traded mobile games company. He was also chief executive of SonicBlue, which made digital video recorders and music players; and 3Dfx, a graphics chip maker that was acquired by Nvidia. He was also CEO of Warner Custom Music and president of Capcom Entertainment.

Hiring an executive of Ballard’s caliber shows that the digital side of the business is getting so big that big game companies such as Warner Bros. — which has a couple  of thousand people working on games from Batman to Lord of the Rings Online (pictured above) — have to hire top talent to attack it. Warner is one among many traditional media companies getting serious about digital games.

He will report to Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, and Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Ballard will oversee the business and strategy of the company’s digital games business worldwide. That includes games that are distributed online to the PC, console, and handheld game devices. It includes social network games, TV-based games, mobile games, and massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).

Ballard will oversee games such as Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online and other MMOs. He will recruit a general manager to run the Turbine MMO division. Ballard will evaluate new opportunities such as in-game ads, product placement in games, and virtual goods sales. The company added Ballard to manage the digital business because mobile and online games are becoming a bigger part of the overall industry, Tremblay said. And Ballard has expertise in these markets.（source:venturebeat）