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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

#151

Post by ianstallings »

Ixiaus wrote: post #88
[deleted] wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Not saying you have to be a robot (I've been emotional about all of my comments in this thread), but there is a point at which emotional logic in an argument clouds the true purpose of the argument. In this case, the purpose was to criticize the company and its leadership - there's nothing wrong with that, but mapping a projected idea of "unfairness" into the criticism (unless unfairness actually HAPPENED to you with…

I agree. I should have posted a fair criticism and a plan to change it.

I think what I believe is unfair is how executives are unfairly rewarded regardless of company performance in a lot of cases because the company has signed a contract that basically indemnifies them of all responsibility. Now don't get me wrong, these contracts are necessary to protect all involved, but I feel that there should be no reward for failure. Yes, let the executive walk with something, because they stepped up and took a chance. But do not give them so much it's practically a reward for failure.

I'll have to think over how to fix the rest and try to provide some insights in the future. My goal would be to make the situation more fair to all involved and acknowledge that even though employees haven't put millions up they have in fact put their livelihood on the line.

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

#152

Post by georgemcbay »

joezydeco wrote: post #114
georgemcbay wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 a…

Can you subscribe to some kind of 'firehose' feed on LinkedIn that lets you get to that information? Or do you have to be connected to each and every person? (BTW thanks for Chumby while it lasted. Great product.)

I never really looked too much at the LinkedIn API, I suspect for the idea to work well you'd probably need to scrape data from the frontend and preferably be connected to a few "super node"-esque people (recruiters, etc).

(You're welcome for what bits of chumby I touched. Of course I was just one developer in a team of wonderful developers and hardware designers. It was a great job and a lot of fun. I still haven't decided if we were a bit too late (introduction of iPhone and Android) or too early (explosion in hackable maker devices like Raspberry Pi). I guess a bit of both.

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

#153

Post by ianstallings »

Zynga could possibly turn it all around if they achieve their goal of bringing real-world currency to their gambling games in the US and on facebook. That is a very tough road to navigate though given the current US climate regarding gambling. Globally though it might be an option to rebuild the company.

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

#154

Post by chaz »

kin wrote: post #10

Wow. I thought Zynga just shut down its other studios to focus on mobile. Now they shut down one of their mobile studios?

OMGPOP was only about Draw Something, which faded as fast as it grew. Zynga's mobile focus needs to be around making its most popular games more mobile, or building new "mobile-first" games. Aside from Words with Friends, their most popular games like Farmville have failed to get popular on mobile. Why not? Mark Pincus would like to know, too.

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

#155

Post by tomkarlo »

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…

Presumably, when a company is laying someone off, ex-employees don't have to worry about non-poaching agreements they might have in place with the employer. The easiest person to hire is someone you've worked with in the past and liked, and the easiest job to pick is one working for/with people you know.

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

#156

Post by tomkarlo »

georgemcbay wrote: post #56
noonat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I believe (subscribed) recruiters can already search by which profiles have been most recently updated. Just keeping track of that info plus the linked company would be enough, particularly if they expose it via an API.

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

#157

Post by tomkarlo »

pyre wrote: post #123
goofygrin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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")?

Probably vs. LinkedIn and online, in particular.

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

#158

Post by mindcrime »

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.

Networking and contacts (and I mean legitimate networking) really play a big part in your overall success.

Networking and relationship building is huge. I got laid off from my previous $DAYJOB back in Jan '12. I showed up at the office at ~9:30am, got called into my manager's office almost immediately, left by 10:00am, made 2 phone calls from my car on the way home... by ~3:00pm that afternoon I had a new job all but lined up (had to interview and everything as a formality, but the job was essentially offered already).

Why? Because I take networking seriously, get to know a lot of people, participate in a lot of groups, do some public speaking, organize Meetups, etc., and more than a few people in my area know who I am and what my skills are. And I also knew exactly who was looking for the same reasons. So the 2 phone calls I made were extremely targeted, as I specifically knew those firms were looking to hire.

Now it might not always work out that way, but I absolutely endorse the idea that networking is crucial.

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

#159

Post by tomkarlo »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #142
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?

I think it's a testament to how quickly the business is changing and how increasingly broken the conventional wisdom surrounding investment and acquisition is becoming. If you look at the way business worked in, say, the '80s most companies that became big did so by selling stuff, and having positive rates of return. And the general trend for a company that was growing was for it to maintain that growth for several y…

Highly speculative publicly-traded businesses have been around as long as there have been stock markets and aren't new at all. Historians have suggested that in the 1850s/1860s more money was made selling shares in mining companies than was ever mined out of the ground. In the 80s you had the S&Ls and the post-deregulation airlines. Then the Dot Coms and Enrons of 2000 era. Everyone just tends to conveniently forget, because the companies disappear and our memories are short.

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

#160

Post by socillion »

trotsky wrote: post #147
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?

I haven't checked, but I assume the OMGPOP deal was stock. If your CEO was selling stock like mad and your stock is currently worth a fraction of what it was valued at when you did the deal that is a strong piece of evidence that you never believed you "spent" $200MM. If you recast it as a $40MM deal (based on current valuations, iirc) it puts it in a different light. The instagram deal was similarly artificially inf…

It was $180 million in cash.

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