Zynga shutters Boston, UK and Japan studios, lays off 5% of full-time staff

While Apple was busy introducing new devices and updating its existing ones this morning, Facebook game creator Zynga was apparently relieving itself of several studios worth of employees. Several reports on Twitter indicate that Zynga is cutting its Boston, Austin, and Chicago studios; our colleagues at Joystiq spoke with a Zynga Austin employee who confirmed at least two of his location’s teams were let go (The Ville and Zynga Bingo teams). Further reports on The Verge indicate that “more than 100” employees were let go as a result of the Austin layoffs. TechCrunch is reporting the full shut down of Zynga’s Boston studio, which was apparently working on an unannounced title before being closed. The company’s San Francisco location — its headquarters — has yet to be affected, nor have employees heard anything from upper management.

Notoriously, Austin-developed The Ville is the root of an ongoing lawsuit between game publishing giant Electronic Arts, wherein EA alleges The Ville too closely resembles its own Facebook game, The Sims Social. Beyond the lawsuit, Zynga’s faced declining stock value since its IPO, and the $200 million purchase of Draw Something developer OMGPOP remains a sticking point for investors. The company is slated to release its quarterly earnings tomorrow, which are expected to be down for another quarter. We reached out to the company for comment, but have yet to hear back as of publishing.

Update: Zynga confirmed layoffs at its Austin studio, as well as outlining closures at its Boston, Japan, and UK locations. A full letter from CEO Mark Pincus to employees was released by Zynga detailing the layoffs and closures, which we’ve added below. The company also says it’s closing 13 of its games, and “significantly reducing” its investment in The Ville.

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Zynga shutters Boston, UK and Japan studios, lays off 5% of full-time staff originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zynga quietly lays off employees during Apple event

Amidst all of today’s hype and excitement for Apple’s iPad mini event, there’s another side of the spectrum that isn’t doing so well today. Social-gaming development company Zynga has quietly laid off over 100 employees at its Austin branch. Reports are also saying that Zynga’s Boston and Chicago studios are also experiencing sudden layoffs and even studio shutdowns.

Zynga’s Austin studio develops the Bingo and The Ville games, and it’s said that the layoffs will inevitably end development and support for these games. It’s also said that employees were given just two hours to clean out their desks, which just adds insult to injury to a very sad day for Zynga and its now-former employees.

It’s said that the layoffs happened during Apple’s iPad mini event on purpose to avoid any press from finding out about it right away, which might explain the short two-hour time frame that the company gave the laid-off employees. It’s also rumored that Zynga’s Boston studio has completely shut down, ending development for Indiana Jones Adventure World.

Zynga hasn’t been doing so well financially. They suffered a $23 million loss in Q2 2012, and they reportedly even handed out stock as an incentive to keep employees from leaving, which is rather odd since they’re now cleaning house almost completely. We’re almost positive that more details will arrive in the coming days, so be sure to stay tuned for more on this surprising development.

[via Gamasutra]


Zynga quietly lays off employees during Apple event is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Words with Friends and Draw Something Board Games: Gameception

That’s right folks, after conquering social networks and mobile devices, Zynga has wrenched open a portal to the physical realm. Midgard. Middle Earth. Or just plain Earth. The company partnered with Hasbro to release board game versions of their video games that were based on board games in the first place.

words with friends board game

Yes, that is a thing that exists: Words with Friends, the board game. In fact it comes in three editions, all of which have 104 tiles and a 15 x 15 board. Clearly a massive difference from Scrabble, which only has 100 tiles. The scoring and bonuses are the same as the one in the online game, except this time it has an offline single player mode.

Then there’s the Draw Something board game, which to its credit is slightly distinguishable from Pictionary. The Draw Something board game has players guessing each other drawings to get coins; first to 15 get coins wins. Note that Hasbro also holds the rights to Pictionary and to Scrabble (at least in U.S. and Canada, Mattel has it trademarked for the rest of the world). So call them weird – which they are! – but they’re not stepping on anyone’s toes here.

draw something board game 2 175x175
draw something board game 175x175
words with friends board game 2 175x175
words with friends board game 3 175x175
words with friends board games 4 175x175
words with friends board game 175x175

You can order these games either from Amazon or from Hasbro’s online shop for $15-$40 (USD) depending on the game. There’s also a FarmVille board game, but it’s a clone of Hungry Hungry Hippos. That’s just lazy. The Words with Friends board games on the other hand? I don’t care what the world’s craziest indie developer can come up with. These are hands-down 2012′s weirdest board games for me.

[via Happy Place]


Atari and Zynga team up to reboot Breakout in ‘Super Bunny Breakout’ on iOS

Atari and Zynga team up to reboot Breakout in 'Super Bunny Breakout' on iOS

Atari may be little more than a vestige of its former self, but that isn’t stopping the publisher from crafting new versions of its classic games. “Super Bunny Breakout,” for example, is a project created with Ville-crafter Zynga, and it’s a new spin on Atari classic Breakout. Not to be outdone, Zynga’s added its own Zynga-esque flavor to the game, which means … in-app purchases. Yes indeed, rather than a regular ol’ ball bouncing around a stage, Super Bunny Breakout has players bouncing “a daredevil rabbit with an appetite for revenge — sadly, that rabbit (and his friends) have seasonal affective disorder (or something) and can’t help but lose energy. How to replenish that energy? You’ll “collect or purchase coins via in-app purchase,” apparently. Despite the stink of in-game purchases, Super Bunny Breakout costs $0.99 and is currently available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch through iTunes.

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Atari and Zynga team up to reboot Breakout in ‘Super Bunny Breakout’ on iOS originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Visualized: what Zynga workers do when they’re not playing FarmVille

Visualized what Zynga workers do when they're not playing FarmVille

Zynga’s staffers might have had a laser-like focus on releasing FarmVille 2 this week, but that doesn’t mean the company has forgotten how to take a break. One employee (thankfully, also a Reddit member) has revealed that the developer’s San Francisco headquarters has a giant, 16-screen video wall for gaming in the cafeteria — and yes, they’re playing Halo in that photo rather than some future, first-person version of Mafia Wars. It’s no surprise that the employees aren’t playing their own games all the time; we’re pretty sure that even the most avid Facebook gamers would burn out if they did. Nonetheless, it’s hard not to smile at the thought that the same people urging us to buy new crops are sticking plasma grenades in their spare time.

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Visualized: what Zynga workers do when they’re not playing FarmVille originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 02:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zynga Is Lobbying Hard For Online Gambling [Gambling]

Unsurprisingly, Zynga is keen to move away from in-game purchases and towards in-game betting. So keen, in fact, that it’s been spending upwards of $75,000 on lobbying policy makers over online gambling, reports The Wall Street Journal. More »

Zynga reportedly handed out stock to keep workers from leaving

Things haven’t been looking good for Zynga lately. Not only has its stock dropped by a pretty large amount since it went public in December, but it’s apparently had to offer incentives to keep its employees from leaving. Bloomberg reports that the company was forced to hand out stock to prevent what analyst Arvind Bhatia calls a “mass exodus,” which certainly makes things seem dire for the social games giant.


The company apparently had to take such measures after it issued its quarterly report on July 25, which as you may remember, wasn’t so great. According to the Bloomberg report, all full-time employees were given stock options, and even though the company likes to hand out equity bonuses to employees at the end of financial quarters, this was the first time all of Zynga’s employees had access to them.

Will that stock be enough to get these employees to stick around? That’s difficult to say, especially now that Zynga’s stock is sitting below $3 per share. If Zynga can manage to turn its fortunes around, having access to equity in the company will turn out great for those employees, but if the stock price continues to dwindle, employees won’t have much incentive to hang around.

Zynga has been hit hard a lot lately. It’s currently under investigation for a questionable stock sell-off, Electronic Arts is taking it to court over the similarities between The Ville and The Sims Social, and the company just lost its COO after stripping him of his duties. All of this while investors continue to lose faith in the company. Zynga is in pretty rough shape at the moment, and it seems that its worries are only beginning. Stay tuned.


Zynga reportedly handed out stock to keep workers from leaving is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Zynga COO John Schappert resigns after losing duties

Zynga has lost one of its biggest players, as it announced that COO John Schappert has resigned. In a statement sent to Fortune, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus confirmed that Schappert had left the company and its board of directors “effective immediately.” He didn’t say why Schappert had left the company, but it sounds like a rather abrupt departure.


That being said, Schappert could have decided to leave the company because he was stripped of many of his duties just last week. Before the restructuring Zynga is currently going through, Schappert’s role was overseeing game development for the company, a duty he lost last week. We can’t imagine he was very happy about that, and that may be the reason why he left the company.

Still, to hear Pincus explain the situation, it sounds like Schappert left the company on good terms. “We can confirm that John Schappert has left Zynga and its Board of Directors effective immediately,” Pincus said. “John has made significant contributions to the games industry throughout his career and we appreciate all that he has done for Zynga. John leaves as a friend of the company and we wish him all the best.”

Zynga is currently going through something of a financial rough patch, with its stock sinking to all-time lows as its players graduate from Facebook games to mobile games, where Zynga doesn’t have as strong a presence. Stripped of his duties, it’s possible that Schappert decided that he didn’t want to be part of a company that looked to be in major decline. Another interesting thing to note is that Schappert served as COO of Electronic Arts prior to joining Zynga, and Electronic Arts is currently suing Zynga for copyright infringement. Despite the peculiar timing of Schappert’s departure as it relates to this lawsuit, Fortune says that it isn’t believed the lawsuit had on any bearing on Schappert’s resignation.

Zynga doesn’t have a plans to recruit a new COO, but seeing as how they took away the last COO’s duties, it wouldn’t make much sense to hire a new one. Zynga is going to have to work incredibly hard to get back to where it was, so let’s hope the cuts made with this restructuring are worth it. Stay tuned, because we’ll definitely be hearing more about Zynga’s downward spiral soon.


Zynga COO John Schappert resigns after losing duties is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 3, 2012

Welcome to the weekend, everyone! We’re about ready to dive into the weekend ourselves, but not before we deliver the evening wrap-up. As with every other day this week, today gave us some more news about Apple’s patent trial with Samsung, with Judge Lucy Koh interviewing each and every one of the jurors to make sure they weren’t being swayed by any outside influences. Apple’s senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller took the stand today to convince the jury that the iPhone’s design was unique, while the company’s legal counsel did its best to make sure that Samsung didn’t share any iPhone sales numbers. Judge Koh also said that Apple wasn’t allowed to keep its customer survey results a secret, so Samsung did get a bit of news that could help it out as the trial progresses.


Speaking of Samsung, it seems that the company is gearing up to announce something, but we’re not entirely sure what. At first, Samsung said that the Galaxy Note 2 will be getting a reveal at its August 29 press event, but later backtracked on the statement. The company did begin teasing its planned reveal for its August 15 event, however, and that one seems to be Galaxy Note related.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus both received Ice Cream Sandwich today, while the HP TouchPad is now (partially) running Jelly Bean thanks to an unofficial port of CyanogenMod 10. HTC was in the news a bit today, as it warned that in Q3 it will experience an drop in revenue of up to 23%. On the more optimistic side of things, it appears that the HTC One X+ may be heading to T-Mobile soon, so at least there’s that.

After hearing that Microsoft was planning to drop the Metro branding for Windows 8 and Windows RT earlier in the day, the company went ahead and officially ditched the branding this afternoon. A pair of Sony cameras were leaked today, and OUYA has announced that it will be partnering with iHeartRadio to bring streaming radio to everyone who buys the Android-based game console.

EA had its fair share of headlines today, announcing The Sims 3 Seasons and filing a lawsuit against Zynga for copyright infringement. Electronic Arts claims that Zynga ripped off The Sims Social with The Ville, and the publisher didn’t have any problem accusing Zynga of theft in the complaint it filed. Finally, NASA is gearing up for Monday’s Curiosity rover landing, and you can bet that tensions are high as we head into the weekend.

As always, we have a few original articles we encourage you to check out, such as these interviews with Colin Farrell and Bryan Cranston from Total Recall, which is in theaters today. We also take a closer look at the leak of the final build of Windows 8, and wonder why stuff like this surprises anyone anymore. Enjoy the weekend, folks!


SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 3, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


EA sues Zynga for copyright infringement

Game developer and publisher Electronic Arts is now suing Zynga for infringing the copyrights of its Facebook game – The Sims Social. Apparently Zynga’s The Ville, that was detailed at an event in June this year, attracted the attention of EA and prompted the third-largest gaming company to file a complaint in the U.S. district court today. EA now claims that Zynga has willfully and intentionally copied and misappropriated the original and distinctive expressive elements of The Sims Social game. Zynga has yet to respond to the allegations. It will be interesting to see how the lawsuit will proceed, considering the fact that game genres are not patentable. Check out EA’s statement after the break. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Zynga goes up against 2 more lawsuits, Judge finally rejects Apple’s sanction request, Schiller and Forstall takes witness stand,