PopCap nabs new Director from Cingular

Casual game maker, PopCap Games, announced that it recently hired Andrew Stein to be its Director of Mobile Business Development. Stein was most recently the Senior Marketing Manager – Games for Cingular’s Wireless Media Mall (how does that even fit on a business card?), and also worked for SEGA of America and Enix America, Inc.

Some of Stein’s responsibilities in the newly created position will include creating a North American mobile strategy, developing partnerships with mobile carriers (so games can be played on “cellular phones, BlackBerrys, iPods, PDAs and other mobile devices”) and developing promotional programs.

Dennis Ryan, EVP of Worldwide Business Development at PopCap, was quoted in a press release as saying, “Mobile devices, especially cellular phones, could well be the largest market for casual games like ours.”

PopCap has produced games including the now infamous Bejeweled, Bookworm and Astropop, typically selling several of the top ten portable (non console) and downloadable casual games.

With so many younger Americans putting a phone in their hands – and we’re still well behind most other countries in terms of a phones-per-citizen ratio – mobile gaming may be taking a distant second to text messaging in terms of non-talking uses for cell phones. I’m going to guess there will be an increase in mobile game marketing geared toward teens since they seem to be the earliest adopters of new tech.

How much time do you spend “playing” – games, texting, taking pictures, etc. – on your phone?

Read [SeattlePI] Site [PopCap]