John Vechey, cofounder of PopCap, is its new chief.
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PopCap CEO to retire, cofounder will take over the Plants vs. Zombies studio (exclusive)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Dave Roberts, chief executive of Electronic Arts’ PopCap Games division, is retiring from the game studio that he joined almost nine years ago. Cofounder John Vechey will take over the job of running the Seattle-based studio that created hits like Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled.

EA, which is one of the largest video game publishers, has been trying to get its mojo back by focusing on big new games for the digital era. EA bought PopCap for $750 million-plus in 2011 under the stewardship of previous chief executive John Riccitiello. With the appointment of new CEO Andrew Wilson in September, the management structure of EA and its various studios has been in flux.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.