SGN promotes COO to CEO role to lead mobile gaming expansion

sgnSGN, one of the top game publishers on the iPhone, has given its chief executive title to No. 2 executive Randy Breen.

Founder Shervin Pishevar remains at the company as executive chairman at the company. Breen is a former Electronic Arts and LucasArts game veteran who joined the company in the middle of last year as chief operating officer.

SGN has made its name doing unique games for the iPhone that take advantage of its touchscreen and tilt controls. Among its hits are the flight combat games F.A.S.T. and Skies of Glory, both of which push 3-D graphics to the limit on the iPhone.

SGN started out as a Facebook game publisher, but shifted much of its focus to the iPhone in 2008 But it has fallen far behind others such as Zynga, Playfish and Crowdstar on Facebook and has bet heavily that the iPhone will soon become as lucrative a platform. SGN has already had 15 million downloads on the iPhone and iPod Touch, putting its games on one of every three mobile devices that Apple makes.

SGN is planning to expand to the Android and tablet computer markets this year, Pishevar said. SGN raised $15 million in a round of funding from Greylock Partners and others. SGN has expanded to more than 100 employees in Palo Alto, Calif., China and Argentina.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. 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.