Former Sega Europe President of Studios Tim Heaton takes lead as Sega Europe’s chief studio officer

Former Sega Europe President of Studios Tim Heaton is now Sega Europe’s chief studio officer.

Heaton – who also had a dual role as Creative Assembly’s studio director, too – adopted the new position on April 1st, 2020.

The new position tasks Heaton with overseeing the continued development of Sega’s pillars: Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive, Relic Entertainment, Amplitude Studios, Hardlight, and the recently acquired Two Point Studios. “He will drive forward the continuing studio collaboration with a focus on shared skills and learning to further uplift services and quality, while continuing to advise the wider business on all development matters,” a press released added.

Creative Assembly’s prior COO, Gareth Edmondson, has succeeded Heaton as CA’s studio director, “overseeing the continuing growth of the UK’s oldest and largest development studio”. The new role sees him “take full ownership” of the studio’s programme across its three global locations, including a studio in Horsham, UK.

“Sega Europe and its Studios have seized opportunities to come together and share the 4.5 thousand years of developer experience held amongst the staff; harnessing that knowledge is hugely important to the growth of the whole business,” Heaton commented. “This was underlined by our first Sega Dev Day in late 2019, which saw hundreds of our developers get together for exactly this purpose.

“My aim is to continue to cultivate this sort of philosophy across the organisation to the benefit of our products, our people’s skills and experiences, and our operations.”

“This is a pivotal moment in Creative Assembly’s history,” added Edmondson. “As we move into our 33rd year of game development we have a new FPS-IP on the horizon and the Total War franchise is growing across different platforms and into markets like China.

“We’re fully focused on the next phase and I’m thrilled to be in a position to maintain that upwards trajectory by building on our heritage and supporting our talented team to excel at what they do best.”