Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 223 posts

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#51

Post by LnxPrgr3 »

sbochins wrote: post #30
danilocampos wrote: post #23

Conceptually, I love every bit of bad Zynga news. I like to be reassured that a company will, in the long term, fail when its products are cynically designed to manipulate. That a company will fail when their strategy assumes it's okay to blatantly, consistently, continuously lift design from other firms and products. Practically, though, bad Zynga news feels terrible . Because the guys who architected this repugnant…

I guess you could argue that Zynga employees have been dancing with the devil for the past couple of years. Any Zynga employee I ever talked to was very open about how they aren't really making games. They are just cynically generating revenue over flaws in the human condition. I think if you work for a screwy company like Zynga you should be very paranoid about cashing out of the company. If they have such a low opi…

> If they have such a low opinion of their customers, who is to say they won't have the same sentiment towards their employees.

Anyone remember this from almost a year ago? http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57322150-17/zynga-to-emplo...

I get the distinct impression Zynga only has a high opinion of money.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#52

Post by sdoowpilihp »

If any of the Zynga engineers are reading this article, we are looking for a few good engineers where I work. We develop with Unity3d and Obj-c for the front end, and Scala for the back end. We also are willing to consider remote for great candidates.

careers@bentoboxinteractive.com

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#53

Post by Spoom »

TimGebhardt wrote: post #17
jfernandez wrote: post #8

Way to try sweep it under the rug by announcing it during all of Apple's product news. Classy act Zynga.

Because other companies don't announce news on Friday at 4:00pm... Or because the White House doesn't make important news announcements on Christmas Eve when nobody's paying attention... I don't think this is a Zynga dick-move. I think this is a typical company move to bury a non-flattering story.

The fact that other organizations also make dick moves does not negate this dick move.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#54

Post by enjo »

Jach wrote: post #31
danilocampos wrote: post #23

Conceptually, I love every bit of bad Zynga news. I like to be reassured that a company will, in the long term, fail when its products are cynically designed to manipulate. That a company will fail when their strategy assumes it's okay to blatantly, consistently, continuously lift design from other firms and products. Practically, though, bad Zynga news feels terrible . Because the guys who architected this repugnant…

I find it very hard to feel any pity for the employees that knowingly got involved with such a company, and I would be surprised if many of Zynga's best and most hardworking employees didn't jump ship long ago.

What about the ones who were acquired into Zynga?

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#55

Post by GabrielF00 »

mkinsella wrote: post #4

Also rumored to have shut down their Boston and Chicago offices.

The Boston office did the Adventure World game. I tried it out and found it pretty frustrating - you can only do a few things before you run out of energy and need to harrass your friends or wait 24 hours. It's not a mechanic that works well with an adventure - nobody wants to chop through a few bushes and then wait to enter the temple. Plus there's this gratuitous Indiana Jones thing which is just glommed on.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#56

Post by jrockway »

Karunamon wrote: post #44
pud wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zynga is a company that makes online games. And people often criticize Zynga for making games (online games, Flash games, Facebook games, casual games, etc.)

Calling the software that Zynga makes a "game" is insulting to real games. Zynga's are usually different skins on top of a number incrementing simulator (for example, anything with "ville" in the name), that happen to increase a little bit faster if you bug your friends (often and repeatedly) and have them increment their numbers too, and you can only increment your numbers so often - but more if you pay real cash mo…

All games can be boiled down to a one-phrase description. If you talk about real games, you can categorize them as "trick-taking" or "deck-building" and so on. The details are what make the games fun, not the basic mechanics.

(Therefore, "increment a number" games could theoretically be fun. Though I personally find them more boring than watching paint dry. At least the paint eventually dries and you can move on to something else.)

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#58

Post by comlag »

pud wrote: post #42
comlag wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the almost all your points except about them stealing ideas. Ripping off the same game from indie developers is wrong. It isn't them using basic ideas like a top nav or usernames, there are examples of them copying entire games[1]. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/25/everything...

> It isn't them using basic ideas like a top nav or usernames By "basic ideas" I assume you mean "ideas that are better and more useful, and therefore more widely ripped off." Your argument reminds me of when people say such-and-such band is so original -- yet it's another four guys playing guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

My argument is that Zynga stole another band's style and lyrics but changed the presentation slightly. They did not build on the 'basic ideas' like having a certain set of instruments.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#59

Post by danilocampos »

pud wrote: post #24

Startups are hard. Even big startups are hard. Zynga is startupy, even though they're public. There's a lot of schadenfreude on HN when it comes to Zynga. Articles about Zynga's problems regularly make it to the top of HN. Some people think games are frivolous. They're not. Entertainment is (almost) a basic human need. Some people think Zynga players are somehow being tricked. They're not. They're being entertained.…

Games are not frivolous. Games are an incredible opportunity for artistic expression, self-expression (for players), exploration of complicated topics, and overall fun.

But Zynga doesn't make games. They make shitty frontends on a spreadsheet.

As to their theft of products, that's not hearsay. That's an ongoing, provable patterns of behavior:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/25/everything...

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#60

Post by jlgreco »

enjo wrote: post #54
Jach wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it very hard to feel any pity for the employees that knowingly got involved with such a company, and I would be surprised if many of Zynga's best and most hardworking employees didn't jump ship long ago.

What about the ones who were acquired into Zynga?

I am more concerned about all the non-technical employees they have, who may have not been as well equipped to recognize Zynga for what it is. Most of the artists probably should have been able to recognize it (with all that tracing going on...), but employees more removed than that could have been relatively blindsided.
Post reply on HN