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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

#11

Post by mdm_ »

I never understood this acquisition in the first place. I was surprised to learn that OMGPOP actually did produce more than one game[1], but I had previously only heard of Draw Something, which my wife and her facebook chums had already grown bored of by the time Zynga came knocking last year.

Forgive my naivety, but don't these things have to get past a board of shareholders with a public company like Zynga? This isn't just a hindsight-is-20/20 kind of thing; IIRC the general consensus at the time was that it was a risky, ill-advised acquisition for a potential one-hit-wonder company.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_on_Omgpop

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

#12

Post by pavs »

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?

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

#13

Post by dspillett »

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…

Probably not on demand. Some would have already been looking. Some people never stop scanning the employment horizon either because the bore easily, as a safety net, or in case something higher paid wafts past. Others will have found something during their notice periods. Some of the best may even have been head-hunted by people who know (or know of) them or their work and not had to look at all.

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

#14

Post by ianstallings »

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.

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

#15

Post by jreposa »

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…

They don't necessarily even need to make a phone call. Once I heard the news I sent emails to about 10 lead/senior developers.

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

#16

Post by Freestyler_3 »

yesplorer wrote: post #8

I was surprised to hear 3000 people were making those Zynga games. Doing what exactly? Pls I'm genuinely curious. These social games seems so lame to me that I can't think of any reason why someone will even think of building a public company on top of it. You simply cannot meet investors' quarterly demand when your success is built on being "flavour of the month" business model. I don't have anything wrong against Z…

I am curious too, they can't fix a game in 6 days when it breaks..... The games they deliver are full of bugs and inconveniences (ie. game with quests; each new quests is automatically accepted, and there is a limited amount of quests that can be open, and you cant cancel quests)

This is not an entertainment company.

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

#17

Post by der3k »

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 "networks of cronies." Stay classy.

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

#18

Post by carterschonwald »

winter_blue wrote: post #9
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…

You'd be surprised at how many startups are hiring in NYC: http://nytm.org/made-in-nyc

There's also many other companies not on that list too. If you're a smart engineer in NYC who wants a new job, if you really want to, you could totally play offer letter Pokemon on a pretty short time scale. ("Gotta collect em all!")

Psa: if you're a smart engineer in NYC and you're not being paid market rate, please get a new job now, your equity has a median value of zero anyways. The lowest I've seen a smart junior engineer take at a non startup was 90k, and that depressed salary is sortah compensated by the mentoring learning opportunities at that organization.

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