When Peter Moore put the launch dates for Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV on his biceps, I thought he was in for good. But it was not to be. Today was the final day for Electronic Arts executive in an industry he’s been a part of since the late 1990s.
Moore resigned his post as chief competition officer at EA to become the CEO at the Liverpool Football Club in England. In doing so, he will return to his first love — sports — in running the operations of a Premier League soccer team.
“Today is my final day in the video game industry,” Moore wrote on Facebook. “These are the words that I have dreaded writing for weeks now, following the announcement of my appointment as CEO of Liverpool FC. I am leaving behind thousands of great memories that comprise the career journey of a lifetime. From the advent of online gaming, albeit via a 56K modem, to the ‘console wars,’ and now to games as 365 days-a-year live experiences, I have been fortunate to have borne witness to the amazing growth of this, our wonderful gaming industry.”
Moore is one of the larger-than-life characters of the game industry, an athlete who moved from Reebok to Sega in 1998 to launch the Dreamcast game console. Bernie Stolar recalled that when Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama met Moore, Nakayama said, “Why did you hire a shoe salesman?” Stolar said that Moore really knew how to build a brand.
Above: Peter Moore
Image Credit: Microsoft
And yes, Moore turned out to be more than a shoe salesman. Sega fired Stolar shortly before the Dreamcast’s launch, and Moore took over in the U.S. The former soccer coach helped Sega launch the Dreamcast in the U.S., selling 9 million units worldwide and turning North America into the console’s best market. But the doomed box lost its fight with Sony and Nintendo, and Sega left the console business.
Moore joined Microsoft in 2003 to help launch the Xbox 360 game console. That’s where he showed off the tattoos on his biceps for Halo 2, when he announced the launch date of the game, and later when he announced GTA IV would come to the Xbox. (The GTA IV tattoo was temporary). As Glixel noted in an interview with Moore, he was a rare personality in games amid some very corporate executives.
He helped launch the Xbox 360 console and make some of the key decisions behind the console strategy. Moore also had to deal with the flak when it turned out that the Xbox 360 had systemic defects that resulted in huge returns and a billion-dollar write-off. One of his less diplomatic moments was when he said to my…