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Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

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Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#51

Post by obviouslygreen »

jgross206 wrote: post #29
pkfrank wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not legitimate to call out piss-poor management and cronyism without also "setting an example?" Does this mean that only people at the helm of $1b+ companies are able to criticize Zynga's pathetic ineptitude? Not sure what your aggressive reply accomplishes; at least OP has sparked discussion to point out a major flaw and source of Zynga's downfall.

Talk is cheap. It's very, very easy to criticize from afar when you have no skin in the game. So, that type of criticism holds very little weight.

Bullshit. This kind of passive-ad-hominem is worse than worthless. If you disregard criticism of actions by people who aren't taking those actions, you're left listening only to people who are actually doing those things... and guess what? They're probably not exactly railing against their own paradigms.

Talk is only cheap if you're lapping it up in bulk from poor sources. If talk were always cheap, advisory boards and mentors would never, ever provide any value. So by all means, throw it away; disregard people based on who they are and not what they say. It's your own loss.

Just have the decency not to mislead people who are looking for guidance with your own cheap talk.

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#52

Post by ksk »

der3k wrote: post #17
ianstallings wrote: post #14

I bet all the execs got well paid for their terrible efforts though and they will slide into new positions of power regardless of their merit. We need to take our industry back from the leeches. The near-sighted execs with nothing but paper accolades and networks of cronies.

Start your own company then and set an example instead of criticizing others. Edit: Thanks for all the upvotes/support. To those who see this as legitimate criticism, really? The OP elaborated on nothing - no constructive criticisms were made. Instead, it just sounds like pure anger and naïveté on my end, alluding to all entrepreneurs trying to make it/who have made it as "leeches" and "near-sighted execs" that have…

So you need to start your own restaurant before complaining about food?

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#53

Post by pasbesoin »

pavs wrote: post #12

I want to know what kind of thought process goes on company/individual's mind when they decide to do an acquisition like this, for $200M, which doesn't make enough money to justify it. You would think when you are throwing around that kind of money, they would do some rudimentary research? How much money was omgpop making at the time of the acquisition?

At the risk of being (rather) trite, I would suggest that old saw, "Follow the money."

Someone was incentivised (for lack of a real word) to make this happen. I would look toward short term incentives and/or compensation.

Without getting into issues of culpability or "guilt", at a very basic level I can't help viewing the repeating series of these instances as simply being another form of "pump and dump".

They keep happening, because someone (or, a certain kind/role of someone) is making money.

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#54

Post by sdoowpilihp »

samstave wrote: post #41
pavs wrote: post #12

I want to know what kind of thought process goes on company/individual's mind when they decide to do an acquisition like this, for $200M, which doesn't make enough money to justify it. You would think when you are throwing around that kind of money, they would do some rudimentary research? How much money was omgpop making at the time of the acquisition?

The thought process was something like this: MP: "FUCK! OMGPOP's drawsomething is the number one game! COPY IT!" varucasalt.jpg Legal: "Mark, uh - I don't think we can copy that one" MP: "WHY?! - We've done it with everything else!" Legal: "Yeah - but this one's too big, too successful. If we copy the number one game, it would be too obvious." MP: "How much to buy it? I WANT IT!" /stamps foot --- I picture an interna…

Or the even simpler discussion:

"They have a huge hit, and no money in the bank. Let's acquire them now, before they raise money, for relatively cheap, so we don't have to sink time and resources into developing a clone ourselves."

Too bad it looks like this theory didn't pan out.

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#56

Post by georgemcbay »

noonat wrote: post #28
pyre wrote: post #5

| "but most of my team had new jobs lined up | by the time they left the building anyway." I've never experienced this. Does this mean that they were already looking, or that they were able to immediately call someone up and get a job offer on-demand? Edit: To be clear, having 'a job lined up' to me means that they already at least have an offer, rather than just a bunch of emails from recruiters and/or people lookin…

Both? I've been in situations where a company implodes like this, and employees at the company are often already being head-hunted by previous employees (who departed during a prior round of lay-offs, or who left of their own volition before the company fell apart) before they are fired. While it's often something of a surprise when you finally do get the axe, you usually have a sense of impending doom, and a feeling…

"You get a rash of invites on LinkedIn, and people start updating their resumes."

When I was working at chumby industries and it was imploding, it occurred to me that somebody could probably write a really good predictor of imminent company failure by scrapping LinkedIn data and watching for sudden surges of activity from people working at the same company.

I'd be surprised if someone (or multiple someones) doesn't already have something like that running, even if just for their own private purposes.

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#57

Post by sdoowpilihp »

samstave wrote: post #27

I deleted DrawSomething from all my devices and we stopped playing it the day OMGPOP was purchased by Zynga... I vote with my appstore.

More people stopped playing because they got bored. The fickleness of the public is the real danger in games like these, not the idealism of a few (which is a tragedy, as the latter would likely lead to much better games)

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#58

Post by Helianthus »

raheemm wrote: post #26
der3k wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start your own company then and set an example instead of criticizing others. Edit: Thanks for all the upvotes/support. To those who see this as legitimate criticism, really? The OP elaborated on nothing - no constructive criticisms were made. Instead, it just sounds like pure anger and naïveté on my end, alluding to all entrepreneurs trying to make it/who have made it as "leeches" and "near-sighted execs" that have…

If failure of such magnitude cannot be criticized, then what should be?

Critical people, clearly.

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#59

Post by abraininavat »

Ixiaus wrote: post #46
ianstallings wrote: post #14

I bet all the execs got well paid for their terrible efforts though and they will slide into new positions of power regardless of their merit. We need to take our industry back from the leeches. The near-sighted execs with nothing but paper accolades and networks of cronies.

There isn't anything to "take back" - other than Government sponsored monopolies or price ceilings/floors, the market is OPEN to you! There are many competent people building amazing companies, incompetent people getting paid well, competent people getting paid badly, competent people making lots of money and being fair with their employees. This (corporate) world is less black and white than you're making it out to…

One could argue that the system is currently set up to benefit executives (who often end up winning, regardless of whether the company loses) at the expense of shareholders and/or the general public. One could argue that this is a problem that market forces can't fix, and therefore that a regulatory solution is called for. One might refer to this sort of regulation as "taking back" the unfair advantages the executives currently.enjoy.

Suggesting that we all are free to become executives and take part in the problem may be true, but it doesn't fix the problem or eve address whether one exists.

Re: Zynga Shuts Down OMGPOP One Year After Acquiring It For $200M

#60

Post by jlarocco »

pyre wrote: post #5

| "but most of my team had new jobs lined up | by the time they left the building anyway." I've never experienced this. Does this mean that they were already looking, or that they were able to immediately call someone up and get a job offer on-demand? Edit: To be clear, having 'a job lined up' to me means that they already at least have an offer, rather than just a bunch of emails from recruiters and/or people lookin…

I'm guessing it's a little exaggerated...

I live in the Denver/Boulder area, and I'm 90% confident that if I were laid off today I could have an approximately equal job in less than 3 months. I wouldn't say I have a new job lined up, but somebody could spin it that way.

Also, I'd imagine people from a well known company like OMGPOP, in a big tech hub like SF or NYC, would have an easier time finding something new.

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