Popcap’s Elizabeth Sampat moves to SYBO

Elizabeth Sampat has joined SYBO, developers of successful mobile title Subway Surfers, as a senior F2P designer. She joins from PopCap, where she was working on Plants Vs Zombies 2 as a senior designer.

In addition to Popcap, Sampat has previously worked at Storm 8 and Loot Drop. Her writing has appeared in Failbetter Games’ Fallen London, and she’s just recently written a book, Empathy Engines, that "takes designers through a process of reaching through themselves to reach out to others."

Speaking about her new role, Sampat says: "I’m coming on as the Senior F2P Designer, so my job is to work closely with the amazing gameplay designers we have across all the teams at the company. I design features and systems that are tied closely to monetization and retention, to keep our players coming back for more.

"I’m really excited to work with such talented people on such incredible games – and getting a chance to work on Subway Surfers, with over 1.5 billion downloads, is a chance that would be impossible for any game designer to turn down."

Thomas Hentschel Lund, SYBO’s head of production, also commented on the hire: "We are super excited to be able to include an exceptionally talented capacity like Elizabeth into our team in Copenhagen. She brings along lots of experience and a great personality to further boost our future projects."