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EA Play VP to join Zynga - report

US source claims Jeff Karp the latest to leave for market-leading social publisher

Zynga is poised to hire the vice president of EA's casual division, Develop reports.

According to a US source who "engages with EA at senior levels," EA Play's Jeff Karp has made his intentions clear and will join the market-leading social publisher imminently.

When approached for comment, a representative from EA told GamesIndustry.biz the company had "nothing to say" on Karp's alleged departure.

Karp served at EA for eleven years, and is at the core of the company's social strategy. His decision to leave follows a management shuffle that saw Peter Moore, Frank Gibeau and Barry Cottle promoted to more senior roles.

Moore is now COO of the company, a position formely occupied by John Schappert, who left for Zynga in April. Schappert joined EA Sports vice president Eric Chiang, who left in March 2010, and was followed by NBA Jam creator Mark Turmell in July.

This year has seen EA reinforce its commitment to its digital business with the acquisition of social developer Ohai, the $750 million buyout of PopCap, and the launch of its Origin distribution service.

The company's Q1 financial results indicate that the approach has been successful, with digital accounting for $232 million of $999 million in revenue.

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Matthew Handrahan

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Matthew Handrahan joined GamesIndustry in 2011, bringing long-form feature-writing experience to the team as well as a deep understanding of the video game development business. He previously spent more than five years at award-winning magazine gamesTM.