Peter Hawley joins Telltale as new CEO

Former Zynga senior vice president Peter Hawley has been named as the new CEO of Telltale Games.

Hawley, who has been with Zynga for the past three years and was also general manager of games at the company, is relishing the new role, according to an interview with website VentureBeat. “It’s quite an honor to join the team,” Hawley told the website. “I’ve been a huge fan since Telltale reinvented the old LucasArts games. Now it is working with some of the biggest intellectual properties in the world. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Hawley is succeeding co-founder Dan Connors as CEO. The board of Telltale have been looking for a replacement in this role since Connors relinquished the role to another co-founder Kevin Bruner three years ago. Bruner stepped down in March this year and the search has been going on since.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello is also a member of the Telltale Games board and commented on the hiring to website VentureBeat. “When I sat down with Pete, I said, ‘Shit. This is the guy. He blew me away. Telltale is one of those places where you would like to have a content creator as CEO, and Pete has that experience. Kevin and Dan invented a new medium with episodic narrative gaming. Pete has a strong vision for where the industry is going. He is a hands-on, driven guy who will execute and get us to where we want to be.”

Telltale’s most recent games, Batman: The Enemy Within and Minecraft Story Mode have been successful. The company recently announced a new and final season of The Walking Dead and a follow up to the cult favourite The Wolf Among Us. However, its dominance in the narrative storytelling genre has been challenged as of late with Dontnod’s Life is Strange earning critical and fan praise.