Google’s game pioneer moves on to an ed tech startup

All empires must come to an end. Google’s head of Google Play games business development, Bob Meese, has left Google after eight years and is taking a job at an education technology startup.

Meese spent eight years at Google, and during that time, Google’s Android operating system became a huge mobile gaming platform rivaling Apple’s iOS. Now he is joining Duolingo, a startup in Pittsburgh, Meese said on his Facebook page.

His goal is to join “a very talented technical team, to help transform a great service into a real business.” Meese grew up in Pittsburgh and most of his family still lives there, so he said this was an “opportunity that was too good to pass up.”

Part of Meese’s role was to bring gaming credibility to Google’s platforms. He helped recruit developers to Google platforms on Chrome, Google+, mobile, web, and television. There are plenty of other Google people focused on games now, but at the time Meese started, there weren’t many at all.

Meese spoke at our GamesBeat conference in 2014, where he noted how Google doesn’t necessarily demand exclusivity for games on its platform.