News broke a few weeks ago that Machinima is in search of a new CEO. Among those in consideration is John Pleasants, the soon-to-be ex-co-president of Disney Interactive.
Sources said that Machinima is still far from making a decision on the new CEO role and that more than a dozen candidates are being considered. Allen DeBevoise, Machinima's co-founder and current CEO, is seeking an executive to lead the gaming-centric YouTube network as it wrestles with a challenging climate for MCNs (multi-channel networks).
Pleasants of course was the CEO of Playdom, a social gaming firm that Disney acquired back in 2010 at the height of the Facebook gaming bubble. Gaming is in Pleasants' blood, which would make him a logical choice to run Machinima; prior to Playdom, the exec served as chief operating officer of Electronic Arts.
However, Pleasants isn't a programming executive, per se. Plus, he lives in San Francisco, which could be a deal-breaker (Machinima is based in Los Angeles).
Machinima is one of the biggest programmers on YouTube. But it's not without challenges. The company has had layoffs twice over the past year. And yesterday, word broke that the company's hyped content deal with Ridley Scott is no more.