The DeanBeat: How Zynga snared Xbox boss Don Mattrick as its CEO

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
July 5, 2013
Updated June 18, 2025
5 min

The kingmaker has struck again.

Bing Gordon, the former Electronic Arts chief creative officer and Zynga board member, introduced his former colleague, Don Mattrick, to Zynga’s CEO and founder, Mark Pincus. It happened a few years ago, and Gordon made it clear to Mattrick that Pincus was something special in the new world of gaming. Gordon felt like Pincus had the right vision and strategy for the future of games. As Zynga grew into a social gaming giant, Pincus and Mattrick began to talk regularly.

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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.