Zynga Cutting 5% of Staff, Closing Studios and Ending 13 Titles

<p>In some rough news for Zynga&comma; the developer behind <em>Farmville<&sol;em>&comma; the company is making some difficult decisions to cut down on staff and studios&period; In a letter from Mark Pincus&comma; chief of Zynga to his staff&comma; he explained the situation&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>INTERNAL NOTE FROM ZYNGA CEO AND FOUNDER&comma; MARK PINCUS<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Team&comma;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Earlier today we initiated a number of changes to streamline our operations&comma; focus our resources on our most strategic opportunities&comma; and invest in our future&period; We waited to share this news with all of you until we had first spoken with the groups impacted&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>As part of these changes&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ve had to make some tough decisions around products&comma; teams and people&period; I want to fill you in on what&&num;8217&semi;s happened and address any concerns you may have&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Here are the most important details&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>We are sunsetting 13 older games and we&&num;8217&semi;re also significantly reducing our investment in The Ville&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>We are closing the Zynga Boston studio and proposing closures of the Zynga Japan and UK studios&period; Additionally&comma; we are reducing staffing levels in our Austin studio&period; All of these represent terrific entrepreneurial teams&comma; which make this decision so difficult&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>In addition to these studios&comma; we are also making a small number of partner team reductions&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>In all&comma; we will unfortunately be parting ways with approximately 5&percnt; of our full time workforce&period; We don&&num;8217&semi;t take these decisions lightly as we recognize the impact to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us&period; We appreciate their amazing contributions and will miss them&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>This is the most painful part of an overall cost reduction plan that also includes significant cuts in spending on data hosting&comma; advertising and outside services&comma; primarily contractors&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>These reductions&comma; along with our ongoing efforts to implement more stringent budget and resource allocation around new games and partner projects&comma; will improve our profitability and allow us to reinvest in great games and our Zynga network on web and mobile&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Zynga made social gaming and play a worldwide phenomenon&comma; and we remain the industry leader&period; Our success has come from our dedication to a simple and powerful proposition – that play is not just something people do to pass time&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s a core need for every person and culture&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>We will all be discussing these difficult changes more with our teams and as a company&period; Tomorrow&comma; Dave and I will be hosting a post-earnings webcast &lpar;details to follow&rpar; and next week we will be discussing our broader vision and strategy during our quarterly all-hands meeting&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m confident this puts us on the right path to deliver on the promise of social gaming and make Zynga into an internet treasure&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>If you have any immediate questions&comma; I hope you will talk directly with your manager&comma; Colleen&comma; or me&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>I look forward to talking with you tomorrow&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Mark<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&lpar;Via <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;kotaku&period;com&sol;5954318&sol;brutal-zynga-update-13-games-sunsetting-more-studio-shutdowns-5-workforce-reduction">Kotaku<&sol;a>&rpar;<&sol;p>&NewLine;