Today is an exciting day for SEGA Amusements and Alan Smith - Alan has joined SEGA's UK arcade division as head of the New Business Division! That's an awesome job title, plus he'll get business cards with the SEGA logo on. Imagine that.

Sadly there's a small amount of personal humiliation to go through first, involving that rubbish wonky-eyed Sonic statue SEGA got some local kids to make:




ASSUME THE POSITION. After this, he has to take off his clothes and run around the building four times. This has been part of the SEGA initiation since the 1970s.

Sega's New Kid on the Block

Sega Amusements Europe Ltd has announced another new appointment and the creation of a new division at the same time. Alan Smith will take the head role of the recently formed New Business Division. He has worked as a consultant for the company for the past year concentrating on the Dinosaurking title which was launched to great success in 2006.

The division will be responsible for growing card game based kids business, merchandise, and initially launching the UFO Catcher crane into Europe. Smith, with a background in the toy and licensing industry, will also be looking to acquire new licences for Sega to capitalise on.

The expansion comes as part of Sega's much publicized aggressive five-year expansion policy. The first sign of the policy having effect was an internal restructure followed by the manufacturer taking the spares business back in house.

A well known figure in the toy industry Smith has had an extensive career covering sales, promotion and licensing roles and worked for big names such as Tomy, Hasbro and Coca-Cola. Household name such as Turtles and the re-emergence of Spiderman in 1994 were down to Alan.

On his appointment he commented, "I will be looking to bring my expertise and knowledge of the toy world to Sega and open up new avenues of business and income streams; it is clear the company has massive plans but also that the income forecast cannot all come from traditional amusement sources".

Paul Williams welcomed the new team member by saying "that he was delighted that Alan had been able to dedicate his full attention the Sega. This opens up a whole new business to us and is a key part of our expansion going forward".

The full kids' product range will be shown at this years ATEI on stand 2020; taking centre stage, literally with their dance moves, will be Love & Berry flanked by the Dinosaurking and Mushiking titles.

Alan is photographed with Sonic the Hedgehog, a valuable licence property that will be put to good use in his hands moving forward.

It's not as good as when SEGA employed a girl in hotpants but is still good news that it's hiring people instead of making hundreds redundant like it used to.