Despite all of the company’s success with the Oculus Rift at CES 2013, Oculus Inc. is still a young startup. The company has had open spots for several senior positions for a few months now (see their Careers page). The latest name to join the Oculus team is Laird Malamed who takes the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO). Malamed was formerly the Senior Vice President of publisher Activision. Here’s his official description from Oculus:
Laird is a 20-year veteran of the entertainment industry. Malamed was Sr. Vice President and head of development at Activision Blizzard overseeing software, hardware and manufacturing for products such as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Skylanders. Malamed earned a joint BS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering and Film & Media Studies. He attended the Graduate School of Cinematic Arts at USC where he is currently an adjunct professor in the Interactive Media Division.
At Activision, Malamed oversaw the production of Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Skylanders. He’s also worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Lucasfilm.
Now at Oculus, Malamed says that his responsibilities include “overseeing all operational aspects of the company including manufacturing, logistics, finance, legal and HR.”
It’s encouraging to see the Oculus family growing with even more industry experience. Oculus Inc. now has executives previously of Scaleform, Gaikai, ROR3, and now Activision.
In an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry International, Malamed talks about his decision to leave Activision:
“It was a good combination of passionate people, products that looked really good, and people who had successfully taken smart ideas and turned them into real ventures. What the team here at Oculus VR is doing is incredible, solving fantasies that many of us fans of science fiction and computer gaming have had since the earliest experiences of virtual reality in television shows or books or comics. The first and foremost thing that really attracted me to the opportunity here is they’ve really figured it out.”
He also reaffirms that the consumer version of the Oculus Rift VR headset (aka Oculus Rift 2.0) is likely to be priced under $1000.
“We’re not sure what our pricing will be yet but it would not surprise me if it had three digits in front of the decimal place,” he told GamesIndustry International.