Sega Europe has just announced the return of Jurgen Post as director of operations for Western studios and regional general manager of Sega Europe. Responsibilities that he had already held between 2012 and 2017, a strong period of growth for the publisher which then reaped the juicy fruits of its opening to the PC market with the acquisitions of studios like Creative Assembly (Total War), Sports Interactive ( Football Manager), Amplitude Studios (Humankind) and Relic Entertainment (Company of Heroes) which is also part of Sega Europe despite its location in Canada.
However, it is a Sega in a different position that Jurgen Post finds today. Once considered the jewel in Sega’s British crown, Creative Assembly has just gone through a annus horribilis by suffering the full brunt of the cancellation of Hyenas and the layoffs that go with it, not to mention the errors of the Total War franchise. And while Sports Interactive is focused on the transition to the Unity engine which will kick off a new generation of Football Manager games this year, Relic Entertainment also had a sluggish 2023, marked by more than 120 layoffs.
Gary Dale and Tim Heaton leave
This turbulence will also be fatal to the current main managers of Sega Europe, CEO Gary Dale and studio director Tim Heaton, both of whom are leaving. Appointed in July 2018 from Take-Two Interactive, Gary Dale notably led the acquisitions of Two Point Studios and Rovio. For his part, Tim Heaton joined Sega in 2009 as director of the Creative Assembly studio before moving up the hierarchy when Jurgen Post left. The latter left Sega Europe in June 2017 to become president of partnerships at Tencent Europe, a position he held until his departure for the mobile publisher Miniclip, of which he was CEO between January 2020 and December 2021.
In a statement relayed by Games Industry, COO Shuji Utsumi expressed his gratitude to Dale and Heaton for their contribution to the company and “ wish them both much success in the future » before welcoming the return to the fold of Jurgen Post on whom he counts to guide Sega Europe “ towards future growth. » For several months, Sega has been pointing out a “ drop in profitability » from its European subsidiary to justify the cancellations of several games (including only Hyenas was announced) and layoffs.