Zynga trims Seattle office

Zynga's mission statement adorns the wall at the company's Seattle office

Zynga’s 2-year-old Seattle engineering office was largely spared in the game maker’s most recent layoff announcement, especially when compared to other branch offices that were reportedly shut down. But the layoffs of 18 percent of Zynga’s workforce are still having an impact in Seattle, though fairly minimal. According to a filing with the State of Washington’s… Read More…

Zynga CEO on job cuts: ‘None of us ever expected to face a day like today’

Mark Pincus

Zynga, the one-time high-flying maker of social games such as FarmVille and Words With Friends, is cutting 18 percent of its workforce and shutting down offices in New York, LA and Dallas as it continues to struggle with the shift toward mobile gaming. “None of us ever expected to face a day like today, especially… Read More…

Tech Moves: Oracle sales vet joins Microsoft; Zynga changes; SNUPI snags Paulsen from Impinj; etc.

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Judson Althoff has been named president of North American sales and marketing at Microsoft, joining the company from Oracle where he worked for 14 years. At Oracle, he most recently served as senior vice president of worldwide alliances and channels and embedded sales. Before that, he worked with EMC. Althoff will report to Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin… Read More…

Zynga lays off employees; no changes to Seattle office

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Social game publishing company Zynga today announced the closure of its Baltimore office and consolidations at three other studios. The Seattle development office was not affected, a Zynga spokeswoman told GeekWire. “In an effort to leverage resources as we focus on creating franchises and driving profitability, Zynga has made changes to four of our US… Read More…

Zynga shares free-fall after announcing forecast cuts

All signs point to a Zynga IPO

San Francisco-based Zynga pre-announced significant forecast cuts for its full-year earnings report on Thursday and is now seeing the affects today. Shares of the game maker, which has a local development office in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood, fell 20 percent to $2.25 at 6:40 a.m. That’s the lowest intraday price since Zynga went public last… Read More…

The Sims vs. The Ville, EA files suit against Zynga

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Electronic Arts‘ has apparently had enough of its too-close-for-comfort neighbors The Ville. The gaming giant has filed suit against Zynga, accusing the game maker of essentially ripping off their popular game The Sims Social. The copyright infringement case was filed in a San Francisco federal court today, calling The Ville an “unmistakable copy” of The… Read More…

Zynga’s Cara Ely: Let’s abolish the term ‘pink games’

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Cara Ely, a creative director at Zynga, wants to make one thing very clear. It is time to abolish “pink games” already, those titles that target women with annoying game play, poor story lines and appeal to the lowest common denominator of what women want out of games. In other words, maybe move on from… Read More…

Zynga unveils Ruby Blast, a high-speed race to find treasure and show up friends

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Zynga has launched its new social game, Ruby Blast, a high-speed race of digging for hidden treasure in an ancient mine that lets users pit their skills against friends online. Ruby, “a spunky archeologist digging for treasures in the depths of the wilderness,” is the featured star in the game of finding matching gems in… Read More…

Book Excerpt: Why a car crash couldn’t stop Zynga from revolutionizing gaming

Mark Pincus

[Editor's Note: Seattle-area journalist Carol Tice is the co-author, with serial entrepreneur David Lester, of the new book How They Started: How 25 Good Ideas Became Great Companies. In this excerpt, reprinted with permission, Tice tells the inside story of how entrepreneur Mark Pincus and his business partners turned an idea into the social gaming powerhouse... Read More…

Poll: Are you still playing Draw Something?

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Lately I’ve been feeling like I should be apologizing to my friends on Draw Something, the high-tech social Pictionary knock-off that took the mobile world by storm a couple months ago. The novelty wore off for me after a couple of weeks, and our in-progress games have been sitting stagnant thanks to my lack of… Read More…

With Double Down off the table, Zynga looks for playing partners in Internet gambling

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The virtual coins that players wager in casino-style games on Facebook may be getting a real monetary value, at least some time in the future. The social gaming powerhouse Zynga tells All Things D today that it is in “active conversations with potential partners” about Internet gambling. “We know from listening to our players that… Read More…

A $10 billion Facebook IPO would be bigger than every tech IPO of 2011 (combined)

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Technology companies reeled in more cash via IPOs than any other sector in 2011, buoyed by public offerings from companies such as Zynga, Jive and LinkedIn. Zillow, the Seattle online real estate company which went public last July, also added to the total. According to an analysis by IPO Dashboards, technology companies raised more than… Read More…

Tablets are the new game consoles, and other game industry predictions for 2012

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Guest Commentary: The video game industry is changing like never before. Here are my best attempts at peering into the crystal ball for 2012: Prediction #1:  Tablets are the new game consoles Tablets and smartphones are already becoming the mass market console gaming platform of choice.  I personally play more core games on my iPad than… Read More…

The ‘secret sauce’ behind Zynga’s first hidden object game

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Zynga is best known for social games such as FarmVille and CityVille in which players interact with one another on Facebook as they build virtual farms or cities. But how do you bring that social layer to hidden object games, which for the most part are played solo? That was the challenge confronting Cara Ely, a… Read More…

Zynga, Groupon and others reignite IPO market

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IPOs from Zynga, Michael Kors and Laredo Petroleum this month have helped revive the market for public offerings, with 28 companies already pricing shares on various stock exchanges this quarter, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. That’s up from 21 last quarter, but down from 64 during the fourth quarter of 2010. Technology is… Read More…

Zynga is having another rough day on Wall Street

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Zynga’s first day as a publicly-traded company was more of a flop, than a big pop. And now the second day isn’t faring much better. Shares of the social media gaming company are down more than seven percent today, trading around $8.85. That’s well below the $10 offering price. The San Francisco company, which maintains… Read More…

Zynga celebrates $1 billion IPO with a colorful infographic

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Zynga’s growth over the past few years into the top maker of social media games is pretty amazing stuff. And so the creator of FarmVille and Words with Friends today celebrated their IPO with a new infographic, showcasing just how quickly the company has grown. “Today’s a proud day here at Zynga. It’s a time… Read More…

Social gaming powerhouse Zynga raises $1B in largest Internet IPO since Google

All signs point to a Zynga IPO

The highly-anticipated initial public offering for Zynga is moving forward, with Bloomberg News reporting that the maker of FarmVille, Mafia Wars and other social media games priced 100 million shares at $10 each Thursday afternoon, raising about $1 billion. CNBC notes that it is the largest Internet IPO since Google raised $1.7 billion in 2004…. Read More…