Zynga offices closing

[Soulchilde]

Wasn't a big fan of their games, but reports are showing up on Tech Crunch and Gamesutra that lay-offs are occuring

[Isgrimnur]

I believe that their Dallas office was an acquisition of the Texas Hold 'Em game. They've got a fair number of offices, as I recall.

[Covenant]

Yep, layoffs were timed to coincide with the Apple conference. 

[Teggy]

You can only get so far stealing other people's annoying Facebook games and spending money on flavor-of-the-week iPhone apps.

[Eel Snave]

If this is true:

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Yay, people out of work.

[EngineNo9]

Yay, people out of work.

Yeah, as much as I dislike Zynga and their brand of production, it's never good to see the working stiffs get laid off.

[Teggy]

I'm not happy that people are out of work - I'm simply not surprised.

[Isgrimnur]

We are closing the Zynga Boston studio and proposing closures of the Zynga Japan and UK studios. Additionally, we are reducing staffing levels in our Austin studio. All of these represent terrific entrepreneurial teams, which make this decision so difficult.
...
In all, we will unfortunately be parting ways with approximately 5% of our full time workforce. We don’t take these decisions lightly as we recognize the impact to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us. We appreciate their amazing contributions and will miss them.

There are plenty of offices that they have.  This isn't the end of the world for them. 

[Eel Snave]

Well, obviously I'm not happy that jobs are lost, but if these people can find jobs in another area and leave all this Zynga silliness behind, so much the better.

[Isgrimnur]

10 games shut down:

As TechCrunch first reported, the closures — part of an attempt on Zynga's part to restructure and thus pull itself out of a business tailspin — are as follows:

PetVille – Shut down December 30th
Mafia Wars 2 - Shut down December 30th
FishVille – Shut down December 5th
Vampire Wars – Shut down December 5th
Treasure Isle – Shut down December 5th
Indiana Jones Adventure World – Closed to new players, shuts down January 14th
Mafia Wars Shakedown – Pulled from app stores
Forestville – Pulled from app stores
Montopia – Shut down December 21st
Mojitomo – Pulled from app stores
Word Scramble Challenge – Pulled from app stores
...
As it announced closures of its various games via Facebook, Zynga tried to encourage players to pick up one of its other games instead, offering them free credits in games like "ChefVille, "Farmville 2" and the original "Mafia Wars" game, all of which are all still operating.