Sacked Zynga bods learn their jobs are gone via Facebook

Shares in ailing "social gaming" firm Zynga tumbled 12 per cent on Monday to $2.99, after chief Mark Pincus announced that the company would be laying off more than 500 employees. Zynga now expects to lose as much as $39m in the second quarter, since its games (other than the popular Farmville) have once more underperformed. …

[Anonymous Coward]

Zyngas 'games' are pure unadulterated shite, I feel for the individuals, but surely it's a good sign for humanity, people are spending less time on things like 'Farmville' and 'Mafia Wars'

[Gene Cash]

Final straw

The constant game updates that I couldn't throttle was the final straw that drove me from FB to G+

I would click "no, I don't want to see updates like these" and the next day would be another half dozen new "Joe/Buffy needs your help in Mafia Wars" spams.

Icon for what I'll be raising when Zynga goes under.

[asdf]

>Zyngas 'games' are pure unadulterated shite, I feel for the individuals, but

they should have known this was coming. There are people who have a reason to be surprised when their company suddenly collapses due to things like accounting fraud but that is not the case here. Everyone has known for months what a fail Zynga was so the employees had to know with the crap products they were putting out that the gravy train would end soon enough. When your company gets acquired and the parent company writes down half the value of the purchase in less than six months you really should have already been interviewing.

[Anonymous Coward]

When it becomes Facebook's time to meet its maker..

...I shall truly rejoice... Zynga RIP!

[beep54]

Live by the Facebook, die by the Facebook. Better yet, "Die, Facebook! Die!"

[Anonymous Coward]

200M for 'Draw Something'

and people are surprised when the company hits the skids and starts sacking the workforce.

[nuked]

..and more time buying credits in Candy Crush Saga.

(or whatever it's called)

[Anonymous Coward]

Also knowing a few things or two about Pincus' back story and how much of a conman he is, I again, don't feel bad at all about this company going under.

[ecofeco]

But the founders made their millions, didn't they?

[JDX]

workers would get “generous severance packages”

Unless they bitch about it on Twitter of course.

[Tom 35]

Re: workers would get “generous severance packages”

But paid in Farmvile coins.

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG - our financials are baaad

POP - a few people out of their jobs.

[Powelly]

I bet Shay Pierce is feeling pretty smug today:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/02/omgpop-ceo-publicly-trashes-ex-employee-after-zynga-buyout/

He is looking pretty prophetic today:

"An evil company is trying to get rich quick, and has no regard for the harm they’re doing along the way. It’s not making things of value, it’s chasing a gold rush. An evil game company isn’t really interested in making games, it’s too busy playing a game — a game with the stock market, usually. It views players as weak-minded cash cows; and it views its developers as expendable, replaceable tools to create the machines that milk those cows. It follows unsustainable practices (like cloning or even completely screwing innovators; or abusing viral channels until they have to be curtailed) — all practices which, in the long-term, not only make things worse for every other company in the industry, but ultimately for itself. Zynga is not the only one of these, but yes, they fit my definition.”

[Anonymous Coward]

How did they find out via Facebook? Was it a status update to "unemployed"?

[SolidSquid]

Event on the OMGPOP Facebook group: "Closing down party! BYOB!" sheduled for the day before

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have ever played the slots game, it is so mind numbly boring.

[ecofeco]

Live by the FB

Die by the FB.

It seems fitting.

[h3]

They weren't big enough to do the totally screw over the customer thing with mind-numbingly boring games. (Like Sony).

[JB]

I used to love Drawsomething until the day the Zynga logo appeared on the splash screen, and it was promptly uninstalled. i really feel sorry for the OMGPOP people - it was a fun game.

[Daniel B.]

Not surprising

The only game they made that actually caught my eye was Mafia Wars, but on the Tagged network, not FB. That version wasn't spammy. Then when I had a fairly decent level, they decided to kill the Tagged version and "migrate" us to the FB one. Not only did I lose interest because of having to rebuild everything and level up, the FB one was depending on spammy stuff and thus I got bored. Quickly.

And then Farmville/Cityville spam made me hate them even more. Whatever. The ship's still sinking, but it has been treading water for quite some time. It is only now that they realize it...

[Levente Szileszky]

But Mark "I Don't F'n Want Innovation" Pincus, the scumbag "Just Copy What They Do"...

... king of stolen IP became filthy rich and that's all that matters. (And yes, I mean FILTHY RICH.)

Of course, he never paid a f'n dime to anyone for stealing their games - mandatory read from 2010 about Zynga and Pincus' modus operandi:

"FarmVillains" - http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-09-08/news/farmvillains/

[Bob Vistakin]

"The company’s reliance on Facebook for revenue"

Spock: "Fascinating".

[Anonymous Coward]

CEO must've asked Marissa Meyer for advice

over cocktails

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad news actually.

As much as I dislike Zynga and its parasitic approach to business I hate news like this. The people in charge are still making millions while it is the average Joe on the ground floor who gets shafted.

Sad news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch at the top got paid, yo!

Das all dat matters Bro. Bitch got PAID dawg.

Now get back to unemployment bitches - I've got my Lear jet dawg!

[Richard Gadsden]

Laying people off before they go bust is a good thing

It means that the last scraps of money get paid as "severance" (ie redundancy) instead of going to the creditor-banks.