Community manager ‚Mr. Zaro‘ moves from EA to 2K

Gabriel ‚Mr. Zaro‘ Zaro had already announced his departure from EA SPORTS at the end of November – now his new employer has been confirmed: He is moving to 2K.

For almost four years, Zaro was employed by Electronic Arts (EA), most recently acting as Manager of Global Community Engagement. His main area of responsibility was logically the FIFA series, ‚Mr. Zaro‘ represented one of the top mouthpieces between the passionate but critical followers and the billion-dollar company.

Accordingly, large parts of the public were surprised on November 26, when Zaro announced that this was his last day of work at EA and thus at the FIFA series. Less surprisingly, with some background knowledge, is his next career move: The Canadian with Brazilian roots joins 2K – and could provide an interesting indication.

Preparation for FIFA license purchase?

Zaro is the new senior manager of global community content at the developer known for the NBA 2K series, among others. However, 2K could become even better known for another brand in the future: For weeks, there has been talk of an imminent end to the cooperation between EA and FIFA. In this context, the license for the FIFA series could become vacant as early as 2022.

It became known at the beginning of November that 2K and its investors are at least already considering an acquisition of the license and an associated partnership with FIFA. The change of Zaro, who knows the FIFA community like the back of his hand, could be a hint for the further development of these thoughts – FIFA 2K23 becomes more realistic.

Second case in just over a year
By the way, ‚Mr. Zaro‘ is not the only former EA employee who joined 2K in the recent past: Corey ‚CoreySA‘ Andress is now Head of Global Community there, until September 2020 he was still employed in Vancouver – of course, he also primarily dealt with the fans of their own products at EA.