Simon Jeffery is the chief publishing officer of ngmoco's Plus+ Publishing group. Similar to EA Publishing Partners group, Plus+ Publishing is a combined technology, App Store publishing and custom support play for iPhone and iPod touch developers. It will launch its first products with the rollout of the 3.0

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

for those devices. Prior to this, Jeffery was the president of

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

of America from 2004 to 2009. He was president of

LucasArts Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game brand licensing, licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as ...

between 2000 and 2003, and a director at the company for three years beforehand. Prior to joining LucasArts, Jeffery worked in a number of marketing, business and development roles for

Virgin Interactive Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwo ...

and

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

. At Sega, Jeffery plans to recruit Western development houses to work with Japanese Sega IP and strengthening Sega's game production in the West in general. At E3 2008 Jeffery told

fans there is not going to be a new console from

, and no current plans to develop a

Shenmue is an action-adventure game series created, produced and directed by Yu Suzuki. '' Shenmue'' (1999) and ''Shenmue II'' (2001) were developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for Dreamcast. '' Shenmue III,'' developed by Suzuki's company Y ...

3. This kills off hope of a

Dreamcast The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, N ...

2 and downheartens many

fans who still believed it would happen. Jeffery's main accomplishment during his tenure at LucasArts was forging new relations with external developers to fully develop the Star Wars gaming IP, such as Pandemic Studios,

Planet Moon Studios Planet Moon Studios was a game development studio based in San Francisco, California founded by ex-Shiny Entertainment developers Nick Bruty (President) and Bob Stevenson (CEO) in 1997. The founding members were then known for creating the Third-p ...

, The Collective,

Raven Software Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many of the st ...

and

BioWare BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated Doctor of Medicine, medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zes ...

. Several of LucasArts' most revered and successful Star Wars games were launched during this period, including ''

Rogue Squadron Rogue Squadron is a fictional starfighter squadron in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. Many surviving members of Red Squadron, the Rebel attack force that Luke Skywalker joins during the Battle of Yavin in ''Star Wars'' (1977). The squadron appe ...

'', '' Jedi Knight II'', '' Star Wars: Battlefront'', and '' Knights of the Old Republic''. However, his goal of turning around a creative original IP slump at the company was never fully realized. According to Jeffery, LucasArts had too heavily relied on its ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' license, but successful new IP failed to materialize. Games such as ''

Gladius ''Gladius'' () is a Latin word meaning "sword" (of any type), but in its narrow sense it refers to the sword of ancient Roman foot soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those of the Greeks, called '' xiphe'' (plural; singular ''xi ...

'' and ''

RTX Red Rock ''RTX Red Rock'' is an action-adventure game developed and published by LucasArts for the PlayStation 2. It was announced and later canceled for the GameCube. Plot In the year 2113 aliens of unknown origin, known simply as LEDs (Light-Emitting De ...

'' did not achieve critical acclaim or great sales; follow-ups to classic LucasArts adventure games, '' Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels'' and '' Sam & Max: Freelance Police'' were cancelled, to much dismay of the fans. (An online petition to save ''Freelance Police'' got over 31000 signatures.) Simon Jeffery later became the subject of several fan animations in the LucasArts fan community, often depicted as a Jesus-like figure. Jeffery is a big ''Star Wars'' fan and once claimed to have seen ''

A New Hope ''Star Wars'' (retroactively titled ''Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope'') is a 1977 American Epic film, epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first ...

'' 93 times.

References

Ngmoco Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Sega people American entertainment industry businesspeople Video game businesspeople {{sega-stub