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Zynga, in an obvious attempt to avoid bad press, laid off some 100-odd employees during Apple’s iPad mini event today. A total of 5{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} of their full-time staff are on the way out, and many were given two hours to clear out of the office today according to inside sources. The Boston studio is shutting down completely, while the Austin studio will see significant reductions. The Japan and UK studios are on the chopping block for closure. 13 games will be shut down, with a significant reduction in investment in The Ville due to dwindling performance. Though the vast majority of these games are on Facebook, there is a fair bit of overlap on iOS. Zynga’s downward spiral doesn’t bode particularly well for the titles it will be maintaining on mobile.
It seems awfully skeezy to try to bury this news under all of the iPad mini noise, though if Zynga’s going through a rough patch already, one could understand why they would want to minimize the publicity. Some of Zynga’s more popular iOS titles include Words with Friends, Horn, Draw Something, Poker, Drop7, and FarmVille. How many Zynga games do you play? Would you be heartbroken if they were taken off the App Store?
Source: Joystiq
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