Arrowhead Game Studios announced today that it’s named Shams Jorjani as the new CEO, a former executive at Paradox Interactive.
The developer’s founder Johan Pilestedt will be stepping down but remains as its chief creative officer and chairman.
Pilestedt says he wanted more time to be more creative, as he wants to get back to creating games rather than doing the business side of game development.
“I’ve been thinking about the journey ahead for Arrowhead, the future games we’re going to be making, and running the organisation beyond the 120 or so developers we have currently,” said Pilestedt, in an interview with GI.biz.
“I realised that running an organisation of over 100 people to however large it is going to get… it means I will [have to choose] between deepening my love for game creation, or the business track.”
Shams Jorjani first joined Paradox Interactive back in 2009, working as a producer, before rising through the ranks to Chief Business Development Officer.
Since he left in 2021, he’s been advising and investing in video game companies and is a Chairman of the Board at Hooded Horse, an independent publisher that’s well known for its popular strategy games like Against the Storm and Manor Lords.
“What I’ll be bringing to the table is organisation and leadership. What I did at Paradox, where I joined as the 23rd person and then helped grow the company into the behemoth it was… it was about organisation, leadership and business focus.” said Jorjani.
“It’s a lot of the, frankly, boring business administration stuff that is a necessary part of running a company, which is hard to do when you’re also juggling the chairman’s hat and the creative director’s hat and also being the one who is in the trenches doing a lot of the designing that Johan has been doing over the years.”
Helldivers 2 has been a huge success for Arrowhead Game Studios and its publisher, PlayStation PC LLC. It’s sold over 12 million copies since its launch back on the 8th of February. You can find it on Steam.
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