Originally Posted on Forbes

Throughout the pandemic many people have talked about how their various behaviors have changed in terms of how they spend their time. Gaming has been one of the big areas where folks are spending more time. Recently one game studio, Nifty Games, who raised $12 million last year, announced that they were moving into the big leagues, with Peter Moore joining their Board of Directors.

Peter Moore has a long history of running very successful gaming companies from his early days at Sega to his leadership of Xbox, then his job as head of EA Sports, and then serving as EA’s Chief Operating Officer. More recently, Moore was the CEO of Liverpool Football Club. He recently announced he was stepping down from that position after Liverpool’s big win of the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time. Liverpool also won, under Moore’s leadership, the 2019–20 Premier League championship, their first top-flight league title in thirty years.

Peter Moore is perhaps the biggest name in sports and video gaming ever. Nifty Games looks forward to building on his reputation and connections as they build their mobile sports games, NFL Clash and NBA Clash. Nifty has licenses from both the Leagues and the Players Associations.

In an exclusive email question and answer exchange, Moore expressed big enthusiasm for the future of mobile gaming, even with his extensive background in PC and console gaming, saying he “couldn’t be more excited about what the mobile platform is able to bring in the coming years as regards even more innovative game experiences. Powerful devices, 5G connectivity, and even larger screens all point towards even greater adoption of mobile gaming.”

Moore has spent the last three years in his original homeland, the U.K., while running the Liverpool Football Club, but he is now returning to California where he spent many years. Nifty Games is based in San Francisco. When asked why he was returning to California, Moore expressed his love for California and his family saying, California is where I have spent most of my 38 years in the United States, and it’s where our children now all reside.”

Jon Middleton, the CEO of Nifty Games, said that Peter Moore is a gaming “trailblazer” in announcing the appointment of Moore to the Nifty Games Board. In an exclusive exchange with me by email, Middleton said, “In the mid 90’s, Peter ran marketing for Reebok and he left for Sega. He clearly saw the potential of gaming. Games climbed out of parent’s basements and migrated from dorm rooms to living rooms. Peter’s a proven market maker and has delivered gamers big leaps forward in gameplay repeatedly with Sega Dreamcast, Xbox 360 and EA SPORTS. As talented game creators were writing code and designing incredible digital worlds, Peter addressed gaming’s most fundamental aspect – building the gamer community. While running Xbox, he pushed for games which fostered competition, and then connected competitors online with the success of Xbox Live. Famously, he went so far as to tattoo the logo and launch date of Halo 2 on to his arm for unveiling on stage at the big gaming convention each year, E3. There’s a ton of reasons why gaming has grown from millions to billions of players worldwide, and Peter Moore is one of those reasons.”