The former employee – going by the handle “former_zyngite” – says that he was in a creative position at the company for over two years at the San Francisco office. He claims to have also worked with a couple of teams so his knowledge of the company and development culture at Zynga is rather extensive.

On the topic of scandals, the former employee says that Zynga wasn’t involved in anything that the public didn’t already know about. The worst “scandal” to his knowledge were the allegations that CEO Mark Pincus and other executives were involved in insider trading at the company, and bailed out before the stock tanked.

As for Zynga’s business strategy, the former employee says that it’s “terrible.” In short, he feels that Zynga was too slow to react to market moving from Facebook to mobile. Smaller developers really took off on mobile quickly, but Zynga was and is still having trouble in that market. Part of the problem, according to the former employee, is that Zynga would just chase trends:

And a serious lack of foresight over all. Too many major decisions are quick reactions to sudden changes in the market. If some games jumps to the top of the Top Grossing charts then everyone need to drop everything and change to follow it. Which wastes time, makes for bad design and ultimately puts projects behind schedule. It just means they’re always late to the party, and whatever game they’re trying to compete with has already faded away by the time their own version hits the market.

They rely too much on reacting to what is making money now, and too much on their own data. They don’t strive to make anything new or innovative and that’s no way to excel in the games market. You need to lead the pack, not try emulate the best practices of top games with the hopes that you can out perform and already established IP.

One constant theme when talking about Zynga are the allegations that the company outright steals other game ideas, and just slaps their signature style on it. The former employee doesn’t refute those claims, but says that Zynga has gotten much better about it after a lot of bad press came out against it with the Dream Heights fiasco and The Ville lawsuit.

Speaking of Zynga copying trends and following trends, the former employee addressed Zynga’s desire to enter the real money online gambling market. It’s already launched two real money games in the UK, and will probably be one of the loudest voices lobbying for its legalization in the US. Our mystery employee doesn’t think it’s going to work, however, for a variety of reasons:

It’s been legal in other countries for years. The companies that have been working those markets were the ones to pioneer and legitimize those markets.

Zynga is hopping in late. They have launched RMG (real money gambling) in the countries where it’s currently legal, but they’re not the first to the market.

They are pushing the legislation to make it legal in the US. But if it passes, there are other companies who have been doing it longer and better than zynga who will jump on the US market first. Zynga might jump on at the same time, but who are you going to trust your real money with? The company that has been managing online casinos for a decade or the company that is trying to jump into it now?

After all this negativity, it would be nice to hear something positive about Zynga. Our mystery employee, while critical of the company’s business practices, said that it took care of its employees and the community. For example, all employees were given three free meals a day, happy hour every Friday, unlimited vacation days, and a gym in the building.

As for the community, he says that Zynga promoted volunteering and “going green.” He says that Zynga is a “socially conscious” company.

Finally, we come to the number one question – is Zynga evil? He says that he thought that at first as he was acquihired into the company. After being there for a while, however, he says that Zynga is just like Dreamworks. Sure, the company exploits popular trends, but who doesn’t?

Besides, Zynga isn’t Hitler. That dude was evil and our mystery employee says that Zynga is a pretty good company by comparison.

TechCrunch reports that OMGPOP has been shut down. There has been no official statement from Zynga, but the studio and its employees have taken to Twitter to announce that the studio is no more.

While this is the last day at @zynga for many @omgpop staff, we want to thank you for all love and awesomeness over the years!

— omgpop (@omgpop) June 3, 2013

I learned via Facebook I was laid off today and @omgpop office is closed. Thanks @zynga for again reminding me how not to operate a business

— Ali Nicolas (@ali_nicolas) June 3, 2013

The closure of OMGPOP comes right on the heels of yesterday’s announcement that Zynga would be laying off 520 of its employees. The company also shut down its New York, Dallas and LA offices.

It’s unknown if the closure of OMGPOP will affect the continued operation of Draw Something and its sequel Draw Something 2. The latter just launched on iOS in April, and an Android release was in the works. We’ve reached out to Zynga to find out if Draw Something will be affected by the closure and we’ll update if and when we hear back.

Zynga announced during its earnings results that Draw Something 2 is now available on iOS devices. Unlike other sequels that would be content with adding new words, OMGPOP has added a number of new features that encourages more sharing. Players can also finally save their own creations as well as the creations of others for later viewing:

For the first time, players can save their drawings in their own galleries and check out the work of other burgeoning artists and celebrities too. The game has a full spectrum of new tools and colors, allowing players to tap into the full limits of their creativity. There are new textures and patterns, like zebra, plaid and camouflage; and new tools, like an 8bit Pixel Pen, Sparkle Pen, stamps, highlighter, crayon and more. There are also more than 100 new vibrant colors. The new Free Draw option gives players creative freedom to draw freestyle and share their art with the world.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a sequel without some new words. Zynga says that Draw Something 2 features thousands of new words, including words “that touch on the latest pop culture trends and current events.”

Draw Something 2 is now available for iOS devices in the App Store. Zynga says it will be on Google Play shortly.

Zynga announced that ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino will be launching as downloadable and Web versions today. The games, powered by bwin.party, will give of age UK citizens the chance to blow all their money on simulated gambling. The games will also be available on mobile and Facebook later in the year.

Here’s what interested players can look forward to:

If you want to start playing the games, you’ll need to vist Web sites for either ZyngaPlusPoker or ZyngaPlusCasino. Once again, these games are only available in the UK for now.

It will be interesting to see if Zynga’s new real-money gaming initiative will pay off as it works towards a profit after a year of monumental losses. If it does work out, we might start seeing more real money online games pop up in more countries. The games maker might also start lobbying countries, most notably the U.S., to repeal anti-online gambling laws.

In an update on the company blog, Zynga says that it will no longer require users to have a Facebook account to play games on Zynga.com:

Starting next week, when you visit Zynga.com you will see a new streamlined signup that lets you create your own account just for playing games. We also wanted to make sure that existing Zynga.com players continue to have the best experience possible so you don’t have to start from scratch. All players will have the option to connect with Facebook and keep your game friends and game progress, while deciding what you share with your gaming community.

Zynga will retain all the social features on Zynga.com that were brought over from Facebook. Social Stream, Fast Load and Online Presence will now work within the confines of Zynga.com for those who don’t want to share their Facebook information with the site.

The social games maker is also putting out a new call for developers to join Zynga.com as a partner. Doing so will allow the developer to bring their games to Zynga’s guaranteed gamer audience instead of the hit-or-miss audience present on Facebook.

Now, all of this doesn’t mean that Zynga is completely severing ties with Facebook. To do so would be incredibly foolish, but Facebook as a games platform is starting to show signs of weakness. Most casual players are moving to mobile, and Zynga is betting on those who still play games on the Web want the kind of dedicated experience that can’t be found on Facebook.

It’s going to be interesting to see what role Zynga.com plays as the company attempts to make a profit this year. The move to mobile has definitely reduced its reliance on the Web, but a Web presence dedicated to just games could be immensely profitable for Zynga if its plays its cards right.

[h/t: TechCrunch]

It’s being reported that Yahoo is currently in talks to buy Zynga, and the rumors have done nothing but good for the company. Zynga’s shares were up by 10 percent on Monday at the news of a potential buyout. The company’s share price has since receded four percent. As for Yahoo, buying Zynga would help the company on its way to refocusing its efforts on mobile.

That being said, some analysts are rightly skeptical of any such purchase. Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter says that a Zynga buyout probably won’t happen as he doesn’t “believe that [CEO] Mark Pincus wants to sell at this time.” He also says that Yahoo wouldn’t be interested in buying Zynga as “its strategy is to partner with varied content providers.”

That last statement is rather interesting in this particular context. Yahoo may not be buying Zynga, but it makes sense for the two to collaborate on a future project together. Yahoo has the audience for Zynga’s games, and Zynga could use another outlet to gain more players outside of Facebook and its own Zynga.com games portal.

Of course, all of this comes down to Zynga playing its cards right. 2012 was marked by a number of bad business decisions, but the social games maker seems to know what it’s doing this year. A partnership with Yahoo or any other major Internet brand could be incredibly lucrative for Zynga.

[Wall Street Journal via GamesIndustry International]

This comes just one day after Zynga announced yet more layoffs and studio consolidations.

The five founding members of Proletariat were employees at Zynga’s Cambridge, Massachusetts branch, which was unceremoniously closed in late October 2012 after the company announced poorer-than-expected third-quarter financial results. The team had worked on the Facebook game Indiana Jones Adventure World for Zynga, and now hopes to find mobile gaming success on their own. Individual members of Proletariat have worked on projects as diverse as Guitar Hero and Lord of the Rings Online.

“We have all known each other and worked with one another for so long that we’ve developed an organic way of making games together,” said Seth Sivak, CEO of Proletariat. “We all want to make successful games, both creatively and as a business. This team has been on both sides and knows how to find that balance.”

Proletariat’s Letter Rush will be a word-find game featuring leaderboards and multiplayer gameplay. The studio has already released another game called Hug The Sloth for iOS, which tasks players with hugging a sloth to earn different hats for the sloth.

Perhaps as a veiled criticism of Zynga, Sivak stated that the goal at Proletariat will be “to keep teams small and let highly skilled groups of creative people innovate.”

(via Joystiq)

Zynga COO David Ko announced today that the company would be closing or consolidating a number of studios around the country to cut costs and remain profitable. The good news is that hardly anybody is losing their jobs this time around as Zynga is only closing studios, not actually letting go of people.

The big news, of course, is that Zynga Baltimore is no more. The studio will be closed, and the employees that requested a transfer will be able to relocate to another one of Zynga’s studios. It’s not said what became of those who didn’t relocate, but Zynga says the “overall impact of the consolidations on our team is minimal.”

Speaking of consolidation, Zynga also closed its McKinney, Texas, downtown Austin and NYC offices. Team members in these offices will be moved to Zynga’s existing offices in Dallas, North Austin and NYC mobile studio respectively.

Besides closing down studios, Zynga has also shut down a number of games. The latest casualties included CityVille 2, The Friend Game and Party Place. Games like FarmVille 2 and its mobile gambling titles continue to bring in revenue. Future games from the company will probably focus more on simulated gambling going forward, but the company will also be investing in mid-core titles.

Of course, this success has to be measured against more recent successes, such as Angry Birds Space, which reached 50 million downloads in only 35 days, or Temple Run 2, which reached 50 million downloads in only 13 days.

Though it turns out that Draw Something was largely a short-term fad, there are still some mobile gamers trading drawings with each other. Also, the game has spawned a TV show project (basically a reboot of Win, Lose, or Draw).

Today it was announced that Draw Something has officially reached 100 million total downloads.

The announcement was made by Zynga, which acquired Draw Something developer Omgpop for $180 million soon after the the game became a sensation. Since that time, Zynga has announced massive layoffs and the company’s stock has taken a nose dive. In its latest financial results, the company announced that it hopes to shift its focus toward building social gaming franchises on mobile platforms.

(Infographic courtesy Zynga)

During its conference call yesterday, Zynga said that it will begin shutting down games that are failing to meet expectations. The first round of games getting the cut include CityVille 2, The Friend Game and Party Place. The unfortunate thing is that all three of these games are less than six months old, and were never really given a chance. All of this is part of a new “guard rails” system that requires the company to prematurely shut down games that don’t find an immediate audience.

The above three games are the latest in a long string of games that Zynga has shut down in the past six months. Late last year, the company announced that it would be closing games like Mafia Wars 2, Treasure Isle, FishVille and others that were not able to find an audience. To cut costs further, it also closed its Boston and Japan studios.

It may look grim for Zynga, but the company says its on track to being profitable in 2013. For one, FarmVille 2 has been an unprecedented success for the company by exceeding expectations and being its best launch in two years. The company is also realigning its teams to work on mobile, real-money gambling games for the UK and mid-core titles to bring in more players.

Will Zynga become a profitable company in 2013? It’s hard to say at this point, but the company seems to be legitimately learning from its mistakes. It used to flood the market with games, but it will now be spacing out releases so that one doesn’t cannibalize the other. The move to gambling and mid-core titles will probably bring in new players as well.

[h/t: VentureBeat]