It's always bad when you hear (read) about people losing their jobs but... damn I hate Zynga and all it represents.
Zynga shuts down Boston studio, cuts 5 percent of total workforce
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Zynga chief Mark Pincus revealed that Zynga Boston will close; proposed closures of Zynga Japan and UK studios; total layoffs will amount to a 5 percent company-wide headcount dip.
Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus has confirmed earlier reports of major layoffs at the social game publisher, detailing that 5 percent of the company's total workforce will be laid off in an internal restructure designed to "streamline" Zynga's future operations.
In an internal memo to staff, Pincus revealed that Zynga will be shutting down its Boston studio, and has proposed closures of its Japan and UK studios.
Further, the company will be "sunsetting" 13 of its older games and "significantly reducing" its investment in The Ville.
Pincus also confirmed that the company is reducing its staff at the Zynga Austin studio, and making a number of partner team reductions, although these were not specified in the memo.
"In all, we will unfortunately be parting ways with approximately 5 percent of our full-time workforce," Pincus said in the memo.
"We don't take these decisions lightly, as we recognise the impact to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us. We appreciate their amazing contributions and will miss them."
Pincus said these changes come as part of an overall cost-reduction plan that also includes significant cuts in spending on data hosting, advertising, and contractors. According to Pincus, these reductions--along with Zynga's efforts to "implement more stringent budget and resource allocation" around new games and projects--will improve the company's profitability in the future.
"I'm confident this puts us on the right path to deliver on the promise of social gaming and make Zynga into an internet treasure," Pincus said.
Zynga is headquartered in San Francisco, California. In addition to operations in Austin, Texas, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, the company has branches in numerous North American cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Eugene, Los Angeles, Los Gatos, McKinney, New York, San Diego, and Seattle.
Zynga also has a significant international presence. The company currently has outfits in Bangalore, Dublin, Beijing, Farnham, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Singapore, Tokyo, and Toronto.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
56 comments
Zynga games in their current form were just a fad. Now that the fad is on the downswing, they need to more traditional games. Sure they can still sell content in addition to their games, but energy bars and friend spamming needs to go away.
What did Zynga do other than create games that aren't really games but lame excuses to milk people's money!?
1 Like I feel bad for anyone that does get unemployed, but Zynga deserves this. Copying other people's work only to release it as your own has always been frowned upon in any field whether it be video games, writing papers, etc.
1 Like In the words of M. Bison:
YES!! YES!!!
I have NO pity for those who were fired. Zynga are criminals and I hate all who support them.
Rquirements for being a Zynga employee:
1. Being a talentless hack.
2. Extremely well versed in the arts of copy-paste.
3. Good with kids. And their wallets.
4. Be even more of a talentless hack.
2 Like @TohouAsura I'm not a fan of Zunga but I think you're being too harsh. Work is work and being out of work sucks no matter what you do. And being a developer/programmer is no easy job even if you're just reverse engineering other people's games.
1 Like @mav_destroyer @TohouAsura I agree that most of the people being let go aren't directly responsible with Zynga's deceptive business practices... that includes a lousy company name and that annoying dog logo.
1 Like People losing their jobs is never a good thing.
But Zynga is the giant beast that needs to be slain. And slowly, I hope collectively the global market does just that.
Unfortunately, there are rainbows and pink unicorn decorations to be bought, and I know one Soccer Mom isn't going to let her neighbor's farm outdo hers.
2 Like I'm surprised that they haven't acknowledged the real problem that their games lack lasting appeal. That's why they're losing money and why they are cutting back.
7 Like I hated them for their games!! but casual online players would differ from!! I still don't see their games as games at all!! The only thing that makes me sad is that people lost their jobs!!
1 Like Good I want Zynga rot very slowly for popularizing the scam P2W games on FB, and also publicly saying they love to steal ideas from other games without any regrets. On the other hand though I wish those who gets fired may find good jobs and hopefully dont end up in another company like Zynga.
Hoping for at least 5% less shitty clones of better games from the world's worst game developer.
3 Like They're already creatively bankrupt. It's only a matter of time until their finances meet the same fate.
7 Like i hope they go bankrupt and close all there studios down.
I HATE Zynga and their stupid games!
They grew WAY too big, too quickly. These idiot suits keep hotshotting things once they get a bit of success... especially with a market as volatile as the social gaming market.
If they had kept a team of maybe 50 people, and outsourced localization to have their games in different languages, they'd still be in extremely good shape. They'd likely have less games, their revenue coming in would be less, but their expenditures would be a lot less too. Why do they need headquarters in 9 different cities for Facebook games? They can do phenomenal business with just one or two HQs.
Even though I could careless about Zynga every time I get on GameSpot there's always news about a Studio shutting down
3 Like @Barrakas21 Ditto, now just to convince about 40 million suckers on Facebook to stop playing their sh!tware.
1 Like Americans are losing their jobs in this tough economy? NOOO!!!! Wait, it's Zynga? The guys that just spam my facebook feed all day? Enjoy your stay on the rolls ya jerks!
4 Like I remember a few months back, when everyone was saying "SOCIAL GAMING IS THE FUTURE!!!", and major gaming studios were trying to figure out how to cash in on the Farmville crowd. Now we see (surprise!) that it was just a fad, like anything else, and gaming studios need to go back to making actual GAMES.
@dlhoff While they're at it, they should go back to making games that you only have to pay for once, and where the winner is decided by skill and not by who's the biggest spender.
6 Like Am I the only one starting to get tired of the word "streamline" being used for "we fired a lot of people"? If streamlining is so great, why does no company do it when they're on top of the world? They're starting to demean the use of the word streamline by using it in place of firing.
@RogueJedi86 if only executives would streamline themselves theyd stop using silly phrases like these... words like fusion, hybridization, gravitas and the like.
@leviathanwing @RogueJedi86 Those silly words are part of the closed stuffy-suit corporate culture. They should be included in the latest version of bullshit bingo.
1 Like bad news for the pp working
good news for the gamers...zynga is lame i hope the whole company will shut down
1 Like My comment is gone, how odd.
Well, It sucks for those that worked for Zynga. I bet Zynga regrets going public.
@SolidTy Saw your (similar) comment in the.. um.. competing?.. Gamespot story entitled "Major layoffs at Zynga". It's still there, btw.
You're having comment confusion. :)
most of their games have no depth to them...there's no challenge in farmville, or any goal other than unlocking stupid decorations. i like words with friends tho..
too bad..i applied for a job at their texas location.
hate to see anyone get laidoff...been there and it isn't fun. Social gaming in its current form though wont last long. Unless you have a product that's a hit it's impossible to make money on something offered for free.
8 Like Sad news for the employees.... I do hope they find work soon.
However, in other HAPPIER news, I'm glad to finally see Zynga getting kicked in the junk like it deserves. >:D
1 Like But where will I get my deeply immersive and rewarding games like Farmville if they cut the workforce!? Oh, that's right, I'll go play anything else ever made...
7 Like "... make Zynga into an internet treasure." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! That is good. That is *very* good! Thank you, sir!
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