Zynga lays off 18 percent of its employees, shuts down 3 offices

Zynga today let go 18 percent of its employees (approximately 520 people) after shutting down its Los Angeles, Dallas and New York City studios. The studios that were shut down was first reported by AllThingsD. A small portion of the 18 percent were let go from Zynga’s Los Angeles office, which saw 55 employees losing their jobs, according to a tweet from an artist at the Los Angeles studio. Empires & Allies, the first game for Facebook from the Los Angeles studio, will be shut down on June 17.The layoffs and cost cuts will be completed by August.

According to a release from Zynga, the move will result in an estimated $70 million to $80 million in pre-tax annualized cash expense savings.

In February, Zynga closed it’s Baltimore studio as well as relocated its Mckinney, Texas and downtown Austin offices to its Dallas and North Austin Offices. The New York City offices saw consolidation as well, with the staff moving to the New York City mobile studio before being completely shut down today. In October 2012, Zynga laid off more than 100 employees, axing employees from its Chicago office, while completely closing down its Boston office.

In Zynga’s last earnings call, CEO Mark Pincus drove the point home that the gaming company was in a transition from web to mobile. As a result, Zynga has sunsetted more than a dozen of its titles in recent months. Zynga’s revenue has been on a decline every single quarter since it’s height in Q2 2012 at $332 million, falling to $264 million in Q1 2013. Zynga also revised its earnings forecast for Q2 2013, estimating a net loss in the range of $28.5 million to $39 million, up from $26.5 million to $36.5 million.

According to Barron‘s, Zynga halted trading of its stock on Nasdaq shortly before the company announced the layoffs. The stock has since resumed and is trading at $3.00 a share, down 12 percent as of 4:29 EST.

Inside Social Games has reached out to Zynga for comment.

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“The last 10% of the last 10% percent…”

Fellow developer said that to me.

He is so right.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2012 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Report: 87 percent of U.S. gamers play on Facebook, Pogo et al

That's, like, almost all of the American gamers. A report by Amsterdam-based games research firm NewZoo claims that 126 million, or 87 percent of the 145 million U.S. gamers aged 10 to 65 years old, play games on social networks (i.e. Facebook and Google+) or on casual game portals (e.g. Pogo, Miniclip and AddictingGames). And of that 87 percent, Facebook draws in 60 percent of them.

The mega social network also consumed 41 percent of those social casual gamers' time spent playing as well as 38 percent of the cash they dish out for games. (Though, it is possible that this latter number is inflated by the minuscule percentage of social gamers that dish out thousands a year for their games, or whales.) But American gamers spend a lot of dough on these games overall, apparently.

According to the NewZoo report, 22 percent of Americans that play free-to-play casual or social games pay up for in-game goods. But here's an interesting tidbit: A whopping 87 percent of Facebook gamers play on websites like Pogo and AddictingGames, too. That would definitely help explain why some skilled-based games, like Bejeweled or Tetris, are doing well on Facebook.

However, it could also serve well to explain why casino-based games are blowing up on Facebook. Games like slots, namely Slingo, had their own little home on portals like Pogo (and here at Games.com). If that many Facebook gamers really are fans of such games, then perhaps that explains why slots games are biggest trend on Facebook right now.

How many social and casual gamers do you know out of all the gamers you know personally? Is it close to the 87 percent reported by NewZoo? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Google+ up to 90 million users, 60 percent log in daily

Google’s fledgling social network Google+ now has more than 90 million registered users, according to new information revealed by Google CEO Larry Page in the company’s fourth quarter earnings call.

According to Page, 60 percent of users log in to the network every day and 80 percent log in once a week. Although the company did not reveal any specifics about how social games are doing on Google+, the network has been slowly refining the platform for gaming, revamping the Games tab in December to highlight new games, top games and staff picks and gradually expanding its lineup of hand-picked games. The latest game to launch on the platform was Plarium’s Pirates: Tides of Fortune, which brought the network’s total game count to 36.

The new user numbers are actually significantly higher Google+ watchers had previously estimated, which pegged the social network’s total membership at 62 million users at the end of December. In October Google revealed Google+ had 40 million users, meaning the social network added more than 515,000 users every day over the past three months.

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Video advertising pushes SponsorPay’s revenues up 125 percent year-on-year

Cross-platform in-game advertising company SponsorPay is reporting year-on-year revenues increased 125 percent in 2011, crediting the growth to its new Android pay-per-install network and its video advertising product BrandEngage.

SponsorPay’s growth reflects the increasing popularity of video advertising, as the format has gained traction in both mobile and social games over the past year. SponsorPay launched BrandEngage last July, following on the heels of competitors like Flurry and Tapjoy, who began offering video advertising products after it began to become apparent they performed far better in mobile apps than traditional banner ads. SponsorPay’s BrandEngage product allows advertisers to show players both videos and brand engagement campaigns, which the player can watch, Like and share.

SponsorPay began its life as a virtual goods monetization company on Facebook, but followed the same trajectory as many of its clients, looking to mobile after the mandatory use of Facebook Credits made the platform far less lucrative.

The Berlin-headquartered company picked up $5 million in funding from Nokia Growth Partners in February to develop its mobile product lines. SponsorPay’s advertising appears in games from Ubisoft, Bigpoint, Gameview Studios and Digital Chocolate. The company is predicting similar growth in 2012.

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Crowdstar Ends The Year By Pulling in 50 Percent of Its Current Revenues From Mobile

With a makeover of its original hit game on iOS, Crowdstar is ending the year by pulling in 50 percent of its current revenues from mobile while the rest is coming from Facebook and abroad. (This isn’t a cumulative figure over the year. It’s revenue flow now.)

It’s a sign of the times as many of Facebook’s leading game developers have migrated toward more promising fronts on Android and iOS as growth for social games has slowed. Crowdstar, Zynga, Funzio and Booyah have probably had the most noticeable crossover success this quarter. Other Facebook stalwarts like EA Playfish, Wooga and Disney’s Playdom haven’t had as much visibility on the top-grossing charts, however.

This past week, Crowdstar retouched its iOS hit Top Girl by polishing the game’s artwork and relaunching it under the name Social Girl. Crowdstar’s changes underscore an industrywide trend toward higher production and better art, which we’ve seen in other titles like Tap Zoo 2 from Pocket Gems.

>> Continue reading on our sister site Inside Mobile Apps.

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