Santa Monica facial animation company Image Metrics has tapped a new chief executive to expand the company’s technology from video games and movies to computer simulation for uses that could include combat training.
Robert Gehorsam assumed the role Sept. 10, replacing Michael Starkenburg. Prior to joining Image Metrics, Gehorsam was president of San Mateo software company Forterra Systems, which develops 3-D graphics for use in military combat simulations and other virtual reality applications. He also headed the development of Internet properties for CBS Interactive Group and led operation of Internet games for Sony Online Entertainment.
Gehorsam said Image Metrics will not abandon its video game customers, but will begin to explore new ways to employ its technology, which could include online gaming and the use of avatars to simulate real-life situations.
“Even though they’re primarily known in the animation services business, there’s an incredible opportunity in the interactive business,” he said. “It was the promise of evolving the company into something very unique that brought me here.”
Image Metrics’ primary business has been the animation of facial expressions for video games such as “Grand Theft Auto IV” and movies such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
Chairman Dave Rolston said Starkenburg played an important role in raising the company’s profile in the animation industry, but it was time to change course: hence the hiring of Gehorsam.
“We are very grateful to Mike Starkenburg, who led the company through a period of high growth,” Rolston said. “Having worked with Robert closely for the past five years in the virtual worlds industry, I’m very pleased to have him join Image Metrics to lead it at this moment in the company’s evolution.”
Blog Slog
Sean and Laurie Percival have traded blogging for diaper changing.
The couple behind L.A. tech blog Lalawag announced in a Sept. 16 blog post that the birth of daughter Charlotte, along with a demanding new job for Sean, has left them with little time to keep up with the comings and goings of the local tech community.
“I don’t have my ear to the ground like I did when I started Lalawag,” Sean Percival told the Business Journal.
The Percivals launched the site in 2008 as an effort to cover the burgeoning tech community in Los Angeles. The name Lalawag was a take on the popular Silicon Valley tech blog Valleywag.
Although the site was a side project for the couple, they made a few hundred dollars each month and paid freelance bloggers to contribute stories.
In the last few months, with Sean Percival taking a job at MySpace as director of content socialization, the couple significantly scaled back their coverage of tech news, local startups and industry parties.
But now that both Percivals are busy with the baby, they decided it was time to shut the website down or sell it.
The end of Lalawag has set the tech community talking. Many people took to Twitter to remark that without the site, there is no longer a publication focused on commentary about L.A. tech.
“Only blog that ever covered me,” posted Lon Harris, creative director for Santa Monica online video startup ThisWeekIn.
The Percivals are open to selling the site to someone who can keep it running and are talking to a few interested people. Sean Percival said the blog could have a buyer in the next few weeks.
“It’s become almost like a little cult brand here in the community,” he said. “It just needs someone who can support it better.”
Legal Matter
Activision Blizzard Inc. is backing the Entertainment Software Association in its upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case versus the State of California over a 2005 law regulating sales of violent video games.
In the most recent lawsuit surrounding the decades-old issue of how to monitor the sale of violent video games to gamers under 18, the state is seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that declared its 2005 law unconstitutional. The law, which banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, hasn’t taken effect pending the litigation.
At the heart of the case, which the Supreme Court will hear Nov. 2, is the tension between parents’ right to monitor their children’s media consumption versus minors’ First Amendment rights.
Activision filed a brief with the court last week that defends the video game rating system already in place. George Rose, chief public policy officer for the Santa Monica video game publisher, said this system should be enough to regulate the distribution of violent games.
“We take this stuff pretty seriously,” he said. “We already don’t want underage kids to buy these games. It’s no good for our business.”
Even if the law is upheld, it isn’t expected to hurt video game sales. But Rose said it could stigmatize the industry. Supporters of the law argue that violent video games can lead to real-life violence and that the law protects young children from obscene material.
A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court is expected early next year.
Staff reporter Natalie Jarvey can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230.
