Oculus executive Colum Slevin has departed the virtual reality company as of this month for a new job at Electronic Arts, where Slevin will focus on online toxicity at EA's Positive Play Group. Slevin's served as the media director for augmented and virtual reality at Oculus, which involved overseeing narrative-driven live-action and real-time experiences build for AR and VR both from internal groups and third-party creators.
Slevin joined Oculus in 2015 from independent game studio Telltale Games, which specialized in making story-focused spinoffs of popular franchises such as "The Walking Dead." He announced his departure from Facebook last week on Twitter, and Monday morning he updated his LinkedIn profile to include his new role as senior director at EA's Positive Play Group.
After almost six years, today is my last day at Facebook working on #VR A fascination with technology & storytelli… https://t.co/uD2KDrGeMP— Colum Slevin (@Colum Slevin) 1629481068.0
Online toxicity is becoming a larger focus for more big game makers as more gaming products are centered around constant online interaction. EA has been building out its initiative, which it calls Positive Play, for the last couple of years to include better reporting and detection mechanisms and incentives within games that discourage toxicity and reward more positive interactions among strangers in multiplayer settings.