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

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

#111

Post by DigitalSea »

This was bound to happen. What goes up and steals other companies designs and game ideas must come down. It's unfortunate the front-line employees who worked for Zynga and only did as they were asked and weren't the perpetrators for coming up with game designs to rip off have been shafted in this situation.

They're nothing more than a money hungry company that deserves to perish. The real question here is: will this have a knock on effect for Facebook stock and perhaps have a chain reaction?

If I were Facebook I'd seriously be considering an acquisition and then priority number #1 being turn the image of Zynga around, perhaps even re-brand to Facebook Games.

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

#112

Post by StavrosK »

w1ntermute wrote: post #107
hkmurakami wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget good apples like Valve :(

Doesn't it say in Valve's handbook (the one released earlier this year) that it doesn't actually consider itself to be a gaming company?

That doesn't make it true.

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

#113

Post by mey »

Danieru wrote: post #69
mey wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I would call SimFarm (SimAnt or SimIsle) classic. SimTower on the other hand.

SimFarm was a classic but rather I'd hesitate to call FarmHappy a SimFarm clone. SimFarm is perhaps the most complex Sim game, I had an easier time with even SimIsle. Gameplay wise there is almost no intersection. What disappoints me about the current social gaming genre is how many games what would have otherwise been decent tycoons are ruined with slot machine mechanics.

As a kid I could not wrap my head around SimIsle, wonder if I still have that CD...

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

#114

Post by StavrosK »

ericabiz wrote: post #93
jmsduran wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software developer who lives in Austin, I find it disconcerting whenever I hear about developer layoffs, especially in our city. I hope this is just an isolated incident of bad company strategy than an overall industry trend.

Come to some meetups here in Austin. I can't get through a meetup here without a company announcing that they are hiring. Especially the more niche meetups like the Python Web Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/austinwebpythonusergroup/events/880678... My startup is based out of Capital Factory, and if you even just walked in the door during Friday happy hour and announced that you were a developer here in Austin looking…

Python Web development is still niche? Are any of these companies looking for remote work, by any chance? :-P

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

#115

Post by yurylifshits »

dave1619 wrote: post #64

It seems to me that Zynga's biggest mistake was 1) not expecting that social gaming craze to take a dive and 2) not figuring out early enough what to do next when the social gaming craze died down ... those two things are related. So rather than predicting and pre-empting the dive in social gaming, Zynga is in a tough situation where they're facing the harsh reality as it comes. As a result, they're stuck with a huge…

They also have distribution and user data.

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

#116

Post by yurylifshits »

dave1619 wrote: post #64

It seems to me that Zynga's biggest mistake was 1) not expecting that social gaming craze to take a dive and 2) not figuring out early enough what to do next when the social gaming craze died down ... those two things are related. So rather than predicting and pre-empting the dive in social gaming, Zynga is in a tough situation where they're facing the harsh reality as it comes. As a result, they're stuck with a huge…

They also have distribution and user data.

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

#117

Post by StavrosK »

gameshot911 wrote: post #110
benihana wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling the software that Zynga makes a "game" is insulting to real games. No True Scotsman fallacy. Just because you don't think they're games doesn't make it fact. They make games, and people criticize them for it. The only thing your post did was help better prove OP's point.

Side discussion concerning the No True Scotsman fallacy. If 100/100 people agreed with "A", does the fallacy still apply? Can you say "just because everyone thinks 'X' doesn't make it fact"^? ^I know that people believing something doesn't define facts - in this case I'm wondering if the fallacy would still apply.

Of course it would still apply. The difference here is that some people have a different (yet still immutable) definition for what a game is.

The fallacy is when you keep changing the definition to fit the data.

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

#118

Post by gm »

dkrich wrote: post #106

I'm surprised to see so many people suggesting that Zynga's problems are purely moral. I think that gives them too much credit. I personally have no problem with their business practices from a strictly moral point of view. Caveat Emptor. No, for me the problem is much simpler. Its a shitty business run by very poor business minds. That may sound dramatic and sensational, but let's consider the facts: they paid $250…

I'm gonna call bullshit on your friend's claim of all expense paid trip purely as a one year anniversary gift from Zynga.

Here is when you get such perks at Zynga:

- You win some sort of company-wide award at the quarterly meeting. You (or your team) did something awesome and you are getting rewarded.

- You get a big quarter-end cash bonus and you spend it on your trip.

- It's not actually a vacation. You are on a business trip and maybe you convince your manager to delay your return and you take off for vacation time at that time.

- 25% of your stock options vest on your first anniversary and you cash in and spend on your trip. Assuming you got a boatload of options if you take into account the stock price.

That's all I can think of.

But what DO you get as a prize for your one year anniversary? Some studios put your name up on a poster... That's about it. The rest is by merit.

And as to your immature and completely unfit comment: I call bullshit on that as well. People like that do not get the type of funding that Zynga got. They do not get superstars on their board like Zynga does (Reid Hoffman, Bing Gordon, Jeffrey Katzenberg, etc). And people like that definitely do not get a company to go public. So, yeah, I call bullshit.

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

#119

Post by chucknelson »

danudey wrote: post #87
w1ntermute wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any developer with half a brain should know that the game industry should be avoided like the plague. Long working hours, abusive management, racism (the Kixeye debacle), the issues just go on and on. Take patio11's advice and go into B2B, you'll make money hand over fist with much more manageable working hours.

I work at a mobile game development company in Vancouver, and it's great here. Best environment I've ever worked in. Good people, good management, get in at 8:30 and leave at 5, etc. Not everyone in the industry is scum, though it's certainly not uncommon.

There are always exceptions, but there sure is a large amount of anecdotal evidence for not-so-great working conditions in general across the gaming industry. If you follow gaming news you'll also hear over and over about lots of "crunch" time, etc.

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

#120

Post by Karunamon »

zevyoura wrote: post #102
Karunamon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you consider WoW a game?

WoW still has a skill component. I did mention MMOs..
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