Mark Pincus and Don Mattrick
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Confirmed: Xbox chief Don Mattrick to leave Microsoft for Zynga’s top job

Don Mattrick, the president of Microsoft’s game business, will leave the company and become the CEO of social gaming giant Zynga.

The news leaked earlier today in a report in AllThingsD, which cited multiple unnamed sources at the time. Zynga just confirmed the news, which is a major change in leadership at two of the game industry’s biggest players.

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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.