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John Blakely, a nine-year veteran at Sony Online Entertainment, has left the company to join social games titan Zynga.
Blakely was responsible for raising SOE’s Austin team that recently launched DC Universe Online for the PS3 and PC, while at the same time running the Star Wars Galaxies.
He had acted as vice president of development before his departure in April. He now takes the role of Zynga general manager in Austin.
The departure follows a string of problematic announcements for Sony Online Entertainment.
Earlier in the month it had to confess that the personal sensitive information of some 25 million SOE users had been exposed to a data hack.
That came after a painful redundancy operation that affected over 200 developers.
In a statement sent to Kotaku, Sony Online Entertainment thanked Blakely for "the passion and leadership he brought to work every day and fully support him in his future endeavours."
Blakely has been succeeded by Lorin Jameson, executive director of development for SOE.
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