Playdom, an online game publisher popular on social networks Facebook and MySpace, announced yesterday that it has hired former senior executive of Electronics Arts, John Pleasants, as chief executive. Pleasants, ex-president of global publishing and chief operating officer of EA, is joining the Silicon Valley, startup at a time when online gaming is growing, while the video-game industry as a whole may be in a slump.

Pleasants will take over as CEO from 25-year-old Playdom co-founder, Dan Yue, who will become chief product officer and oversee game development. Meanwhile, EA announced that Pleasants would be replaced by John Schappert, who was corporate VP of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, which includes the company’s Xbox Live online gaming network. Schappert, who left EA in 2007 to join Microsoft, is scheduled to return to EA July 14.

Source: Information Week