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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

#121

Post by der3k »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #115
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…

There is nothing I dislike more about Silicon Valley than this attitude. Yesterday I saw someone tweet "funny how people who criticize startups usually aren't the ones starting them, might be something to that..." Or maybe we could realize that this creates a ridiculous logical fallacy on the level of "only god can judge me". Who decided that the only people who can criticize obvious mistakes, shady behavior and bein…

"We need to take our industry back from the leeches." Hence, my recommendation to create his/her own company as an effort to "take back the industry."

I never mentioned or implied that one would need to be an entrepreneur in order to criticize others in this field. And if you are going to criticize others, do it constructively, which the original OP obviously didn't do. Thanks.

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

#122

Post by potatolicious »

Aco- wrote: post #116
asnyder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With leadership responsibilities or just individual contributor role?

With leadership responsibilities. Say a medium-to-small sized team, less than 10 people. One could say the position would be either; Senior Software Engineer or Technical Lead.

Making a lot of assumptions about the job and yourself, obviously, but that strikes me as a $150K position, if not higher. I've seen a few roles like that go for $180-200K total comp in the NYC area.

It may a little bit of negotiation finesse (or more realistically, holding several offers in hand at once and willing to play them against each other).

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

#123

Post by pyre »

goofygrin wrote: post #120
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 got the axe at a job a few years ago at lunch on a Thursday. By 3pm I had a new gig lined up start the following Monday. Networking and contacts (and I mean legitimate networking) really play a big part in your overall success. I'm in a large city, but nothing like NYC or the Valley either.

  | I mean legitimate networking
Are you trying to distinguish relationships vs. contacts/acquaintances here (i.e. "knowing people professionally" vs. "knowing people from going to a couple of meetups")?

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

#124

Post by [deleted] »

potatolicious wrote: post #122
Aco- wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With leadership responsibilities. Say a medium-to-small sized team, less than 10 people. One could say the position would be either; Senior Software Engineer or Technical Lead.

Making a lot of assumptions about the job and yourself, obviously, but that strikes me as a $150K position, if not higher. I've seen a few roles like that go for $180-200K total comp in the NYC area. It may a little bit of negotiation finesse (or more realistically, holding several offers in hand at once and willing to play them against each other).

[deleted]

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

#126

Post by RHSeeger »

Ixiaus wrote: post #64
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.

Criticism can be legitimate, constructive analytical criticism can be enlightening (studying what went wrong). Claiming that all of the execs made a terrible effort and implying that it is "unfair" they are being paid well (maybe they aren't being paid well!?!) is silly, unless of course he's an insider. Even if he was an insider, it would still be silly because of its emotional content which is what the commenter ab…

I know this isn't exactly a constructive post, but... https://www.google.com/search?q=why%20zynga%20sucks&hl=e... isn't exactly short on results. The company and how it is run are fairly widely considered examples of everything that can be wrong with social/mobile game development.

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

#127

Post by therobot24 »

sdoowpilihp wrote: post #47
jerhinesmith wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's anything like San Francisco, once word spreads that a gaming company is shuttering, there's pretty much a "land grab" from the other local companies for talent.

Especially at a company like Zynga, that at least as far as I know, had a fairly rigorous interview process. It's a chance to get a pre-screened engineer, possibly on the cheap.

understandably a company would want to pay less for higher quality work, but at the same time if the process was rigorous and assuming many tech recruiters are also trying to poach the employees - i would think 'on the cheap' wouldn't really apply given supply/demand here

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

#128

Post by ianstallings »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #112
ianstallings wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right talk is cheap. Here's my latest startup I just built with 5 others: http://www.brabble.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brabble/id570281083?mt=8 Edited: 5 others. Forgot the Angel.

On the brabble.com site the menu that pops in from the left pushes the text off the right of my browser window. http://i.imgur.com/AcmcN53.png While the site is responsive and making the window small so the left menu goes away fixes it, resizing to any amount larger than that results in some of the text being hidden off the right hand side. Chrome Version 27.0.1453.94 m

Thanks! I'll send this to Randy who is in charge of the website now. I'm pretty sure we're in agreement, him and I, that the left menu is possibly a bad idea and we've struggled with it.

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

#129

Post by mediascreen »

CodeCube wrote: post #111
chaz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a few dozen games of varying popularity. The bigger ones need a non-stop flow of new content to be created. Zynga was very good at creating new tasks and items constantly, so there was always something to do and something new to collect. It requires new story lines, artwork, mechanics, localization, and support. Many of the games don't overlap, so each game needs much of its own team. > You simply cannot me…

I just had a funny vision of what their task management system might look like. With managers planting work items, and having to harvest them when the developers are done :P

Yes! Please Atlassian, consider this a feature request for Jira.

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

#130

Post by Freestyler_3 »

sdoowpilihp wrote: post #32
Freestyler_3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The inconveniences are by design. The bugs are due to aggressive deadlines.

With 3000 people... that amazes me.
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