Advisor Mark DeLoura moves to Google for Games

Today, Hollywood Hill and Play4Change Lab Advisor Mark DeLoura announced is moving to Google as "Developer Advocate" for games.

From Game News Site Gamasutra:

This is the one of the first times in recent years that Google has hired someone into a position that focuses specifically on game development and game developers.

It highlights the growing importance of the company's current gaming-related initiatives such as Google Android, Google's open source 3D API called O3D API, Chrome and Chrome OS.

"I personally feel that Google hiring someone specifically to focus on games is a signal from the company that they recognize the growing importance of games as a medium," said DeLoura in a statement to Gamasutra.

"Now how do we make it easier for developers to express themselves and share the experiences they create?" The position of developer advocate for games at Google is "both inward- and outward-facing," he added.

DeLoura is well-known within the video game industry. For the past three years, DeLoura has been performing CTO-level game technology consulting for a variety of companies, and has been writing about game engines and middleware. He's also on the board of the International Game Developers Association and the OneBigGame charity, and served as a judge for the Independent Games Festival and the recently-announced White House-backed Apps for Healthy Kids Competition.