Zynga cuts workforce by 18 per cent
San Francisco - Social gaming giant Zynga, which became a darling of investors with Facebook games like Farmville, has laid off 520 employees, or 18 per cent of its workforce, the company announced Monday.
The move will also see the closure of several offices and would save Zynga between 70 and 80 million dollars per year, the company said in a financial filing.
Zynga's fortunes have fallen as the focus of casual gaming shifts into mobile games played on smartphones - an area dominated by even younger companies than Zynga.
Zynga was launched six years ago and its IPO in 2011 signaled the start of the social networking financial boom that culminated in the 100-million-dollar IPO of Facebook just over a year ago.
"None of us ever expected to face a day like today, especially when so much of our culture has been about growth," Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said in an e-mail message to employees that was published by Mashable.com. "But I think we all know this is necessary to move forward.
"The scale that served us so well in building and delivering the leading social-gaming service on the Web is now making it hard to successfully lead across mobile and multiplatform, which is where social games are going to be played," Pincus said.//DPA
