By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

An executive involved with one of the most successful videogame franchises ever ''Activision Blizzard's "Call of Duty" ''is joining Cambridge-based Atlas Venture as the VC firm's newest entrepreneur-in-residence. And it sounds like he's already laying the groundwork for a new company of his own.

Noah Heller, who'd previously been based in Santa Monica, is moving to Boston. "I liked the energy here a lot," he says, "and I wanted to go where it was a little more blue sky" ''meaning that the gaming industry isn't as well-developed locally as it is in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Austin. Mentioning Boston's "awesome" schools, he adds, "I kind of look at Boston as a new market for gaming. That's not to short-shrift the guys at Harmonix who are knocking it out of the park, but I want to be part of the core here as it expands."

Heller's last day at Activision is today; he'd been the product director for "Call of Duty Elite," a subscription-based service linked to two games in the "Call of Duty" series, and had also worked on the company's first iPhone product, "Call of Duty: Zombies."

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