Steve Allison, former Epic Games vice president, has joined Saber Interactive as chief business officer.
Allison is set to oversee the developer's publishing, marketing, and revenue opportunities, reporting directly to Saber CEO Matthew Karch.
"I have been extremely impressed with what Matt, Andrey, and Anton have built over the years," says Allison, referring to co-founders Andrey Iones and Anton Krupkin, with the three of them having started Saber back in 2001.
"Saber's strength is the talented studios that build high-quality games at 30 to 50 percent the cost of industry norms. The upcoming slate is exceptional with Space Marine 3, Jurassic Park, Turok, Hellraiser, the upcoming John Wick game and several unannounced projects that we can talk about very soon. It's an honor to join Matt and the team as Saber enters this transformative period."
Allison has held tenures as vice president of marketing and business development at Atari, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Midway Games, and senior vice president of publishing at Telltale Games.
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Then, Allison joined Epic Games, where he worked at for over eight years. According to his LinkedIn profile, he founded and led the store organization as vice president and general manager, working on the Epic Games Store as well as Epic Games Publishing, the company's third-party publishing effort.
"Steve Allison has done more to shape and modernize the game industry than anyone else I know," Karch said in a press release announcing the news.
"He has created major companies, developed new platforms and spearheaded bestselling IP. He is not only one of the most knowledgeable and experienced individuals in games, but he is also incredibly handsome—a trait we were sorely lacking after leaving Aspyr with Embracer. We are lucky to have him help lead Saber into the next phase of our journey, even if I need to avoid joint photo ops."
Karch is referring to the fact Embracer's acquisition of Saber, which took place in early 2020. Four years later, the parent company divested the "core" Saber assets in a deal worth $247 million.
The divestment occurred a year after a massive business deal (allegedly with Saudi-owned Savvy Game Group) fell through, which led to the company executing a brutal string of cuts and studio closures that resulted in 4,500 cut jobs and 80 cancelled projects. Despite this, Karch has withstood his position that criticism against Embracer, and particularly its CEO, Lars Wingefors, is "fair."
Since then, the studio net a "significant" equity investment to pay its debt to Embracer, while Karch donated $5 million to the University of Texas at Austin, founding a new game industry academic apartment. The program, dubbed the "Karch Gaming Institute," is set to shape "the next generation of creative leaders" in the video game industry.
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