Today, GREE announced it hired Jim Ying as its new Vice-President of Developer Relations & Business Development. This new position will see Ying overseeing the company’s Developer Relations team; this includes business development, account management, and heading up GREE’s consulting service for developers on GREE’s new mobile platform.

Ying’s a long-standing member of the video game industry, both in North America and in Asia. Most recently, he was with the social mobile developer and publisher 6waves as the company’s SVP of Publishing until he was phased out during the company’s most recent round of staff cuts. During his time with the company he helped oversee 6waves’ transition from social to mobile games, as well as its expansion into Asian territories.

GREE has been making a concentrated push into North American mobile markets recently, with its upcoming mobile platform about to launch and its high-profile “GREE Loves Indies” competition. The company is appealing to many developers right now because of the massive audience it has access to after it acquired OpenFeint for $104 million in 2011. As for OpenFeint itself, though, GREE caught many developers and users off-guard last week when it announced it would be shutting the service down on December 14.