Hasta La Gadget!

Kixeye has filed a cross-complaint against Zynga in what has become a back and forth battle between the two companies. The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of California, and comes after a lawsuit by Zynga against Kixeye. It all started when one of Zynga’s employees who worked on CityVille left for the now-suing company.

Zynga filed a complaint against its former employee Alan Patmore, who originally worked on CityVille and left the company for Kixeye, becoming Vice President of Product. According to Zynga, Patmore took with him 763 files, which included confidential designs. The company also alleges that Kixeye was aware of the file theft and ultimately accessed the data.

Patmore has confessed to taking the documents specified by Zynga, while Kixeye admits to having accessed two of those files. The company states that neither of the two files contained Zynga trade secrets, however. For this reason, the cross-complaint seeks to have Zynga’s interference in its business relations and recruiting practices put to a stop.

Kixeye’s CEO Will Harbin offered this statement. “We will fight to our last breath to keep this predatory company from accessing our confidential information and best practices. We intend to defend ourselves from Zynga’s legal bullying for as long as it takes to reveal the truth – that Kixeye played no part in this.”

[via CNET]

Kixeye files cross-complaint against Zynga is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Friday is here once again, but before you get too terribly sloshed, be sure you read through our recap of the day’s big news! Today we heard that Judge Lucy Koh will examine claims of misconduct on the part of the jury foreman in the Samsung vs. Apple patent trial, and Apple is actually being dragged back to court for a dispute over FaceTime in the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Speaking of the iPad mini, Apple confirmed today that the LTE iPad minis should be shipping out in the next five days, and the company announced that it will be donating $2.5 million to the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort on behalf of its employees.

Earlier in the day, we learned that ASUS was handing out vouchers to consumers in Europe who bought the 16GB Nexus 7 right before its price drop, and then later on Google announced that it will be offering a “price protection program,” for 16GB Nexus 7 purchasers as well. The Nokia Lumia 920T leaked today, and it seems that China Telecom may be getting the iPhone 5 before long. Six companies may be facing fines for alleged CRT price fixing, and after learning a ton about Grand Theft Auto V yesterday, a leak today gave us all new information.

Google said today that it will begin focusing more on mobile than desktop, and Apple was named the most innovative company of the year by Booz and Co. There will be a new Windows 8 security update landing on November 13, and some users are already reporting issues with their Microsoft Surface touch covers. US video game sales were down 25% in October, and today Zynga revealed that it has acquired November Software, even though that purchase happened back in spring.

Angry Birds Star Wars rose to the top of the iOS charts in record time, and BioWare wants your suggestions for its next Mass Effect game. We learned today that climate change might mean a bleak future for the world’s coffee beans, and that the Motorola DROID RAZR M will soon be getting an upgrade to Jelly Bean from Verizon. Finally tonight, we compare the the Nokia Lumia 920 to the HTC Windows Phone 8X in a head-to-head battle, we take a closer look at the FanVision displays used during NASCAR races, and Chris Burns has a new interview with NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the weekend ahead!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: November 9, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Zynga has been in the news a lot lately, but the recent layoffs at the beleaguered social games company have caught the attention of more than just the media. Anonymous isn’t all too happy with Zynga at the moment, and it’s planning to do something about the company’s perceived mistreatment of employees come Guy Fawkes Day. It’s then, on November 5, that Anonymous plans to complete “operation maZYNGA,” an offensive it has apparently already started.

In a forum post on AnonNews.org, Anonymous has shared some links to data files it has allegedy stolen from Zynga. On November 5, Anonymous says it will “release the key to the data files,” which the group claims outline a Zynga plan to layoff even more employees and outsource those jobs. Not only that, but Anonymous claims it will release games it has stolen from Zynga’s servers for free unless the company halts its plan to layoff more employees.

Anonymous put a video up on YouTube explaining the plan, but it has been taken down since it violates YouTube’s policy against the “depiction of harmful activities.” In the video transcript posted to the AnonNews forum, Anonymous explains, “With a billion dollars cash sitting in a bank we do believe that such actions are an insult to the population and the behaviour of corporations like Zynga must change.” The group has posted a transcript of one of these stolen internal documents, which supposedly outlines the company’s plan to layoff more workers in the US while outsourcing these jobs to India.

This is where the story gets a little difficult to believe, as the transcript from this alleged internal document is very poorly written. In other words, take these claims from Anonymous with a grain of salt, because it’s possible the infamous hacker collective is just making the whole thing up. In any case, November 5 is right around the corner, so we should be finding out if Anonymous is telling the truth soon enough. Stay tuned.

[via Eurogamer]

Anonymous turns its attention toward Zynga is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hot on the heels of the mysterious and sudden layoffs of 150 employees at Zynga‘s multiple studios comes the company’s Q3 2012 earnings report, and while it doesn’t look too good for the once-booming social game studio, it’s not as bad expected. The company earned a revenue of $317 million, but the net income dipped into the negatives, losing $52 million during the third quarter.

It’s not all bad, though. Revenue was actually expected to be around $250 million, so the amount of money Zynga brought in was actually more than what analysts thought. However, the company is looking for ways to cut down on costs and save a little bit of cash. They implemented a “cost reduction plan” that will hopefully total a pre-tax savings in the fourth quarter of up to $20 million.

The plan already included the downsizing of certain studios and the closure of others. In total, Zynga cut 5% of its workforce and shut down its Boston branch. The company also expects to shut down its Japan and UK studios, but no timeline has been given for that. Zynga also is expecting to shut down 13 of their games, but a lot of their popular games will still remain available.

However, Zynga is reporting slightly higher user numbers this time around. Daily active users were 60 million during the third quarter, which is up 10% from 54 million a year ago, but down from 72 million in the second quarter of this year. Monthly active users were 311 million in the third quarter, up 37% from 227 million a year ago, and also up from 306 million during Q2.

Zynga reports Q3 2012 earnings is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Earlier today, we heard that Zynga had laid off a number of workers and had shut down its Boston studio. At the time, those were only reports, but this afternoon Zynga CEO Mark Pincus confirmed the layoffs and the studio closure to employees in an internal letter posted by Joystiq. In the letter, Pincus explains that not only will Zynga be closing its studio in Boston, but also reducing the workforce at its Austin branch.

In all, Zynga will have to layoff 5% of its full time employees. More layoffs may come later on down the road, as Pincus says that executives are proposing the shut down of studios in Japan and the UK. Not only that, but Zynga will be retiring 13 games and “significantly reducing” its investment in The Ville, a game which Electronic Arts is currently suing the company over.

Those 13 games aren’t named in the letter, so it could be any combination of social and mobile games. The fact that Zynga will stop supporting 13 different games and could potentially close down three studios entirely signifies that the company is in a heap of financial trouble, which won’t come as a surprise to a lot of folks.

After all, Zynga has been struggling financially for a while now as its customers move from Facebook to mobile gaming, and tomorrow’s financial report probably isn’t going to bring any good news. Pincus says in his letter that “These reductions, along with our ongoing efforts to implement more stringent budget and resource allocation around new games and partner projects, will improve our profitability and allow us to reinvest in great games and our Zynga network on web and mobile.” Here’s hoping that’s the case, because it’s never good to hear to that people will be losing their jobs.

Zynga confirms layoffs, Boston studio shut down is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.