EA Sports creative director heads to Zynga

Zynga has added another talented game developer to its growing roster, this time in the form Mark Turmell, one of the creative forces behind sports series like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz.

The news comes via Kotaku, though we don’t know yet what Turmell will be working on at Zynga. He left a position as senior creative director at EA Tiburon, a studio focused largely on developing EA Sports games. Prior to that Turmell worked at Midway, where he helped develop several arcade-style sports series, including NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and NBA Ballers.

Zynga has hired a number of notable game developers in the past, including strategy game designers Brian Reynolds and Bruce Shelley. However, sports games are one area the developer has yet to put much focus on, which could be the reason behind the new hire.

Other developers, meanwhile, have been leveraging sports brands for new games including Playdom’s ESPN Sports Bar & Grill and NBA Dynasty, as well as EA’s own World Series Superstars and Madden NFL Superstars.

Andrew Webster