Sometimes, in the business world, it helps to go back to basics – or turn to an old face to rejuvenate a company’s standards.
That’s certainly the situation Zynga is facing, as the company saw CEO Don Mattrick, who took the job two years ago after leaving Microsoft, stepped down this week. Taking his spot at CEO is the man who left it at that time, company founder Mark Pincus, Re/Code reports.
Mattrick’s departure had been rumored for some time, but feels like a sudden one. He’s made great progress with the company over the last two years, changing its focus more towards mobile and helping cut costs in certain areas. Zynga now derives the majority of its revenue from mobile games (over 60%), versus only 27% of revenue from mobile when Mattrick arrived. Still, Pincus stated that the parting was amicable.
“Don and I and the board came to this together and it was super amicable,” said Pincus. “(But) it’s been two years and we are still not winning as a company on the level we had hoped and think we can be. We need to move fast and we need to act a little bit more as a startup, by focusing more on enterpreneuring and speed than on structure and management.” With that, he believes that a focus on a broader mobile customer base would be a good option to take.
Pincus was the CEO of the company before Mattrick was hired, stepping down as certain pressure around Wall Street forced him to walk away. “I basically fired myself,” he said when Mattrick took over. After working on a series of startups, he’s now set to try and bring his company back to prosperity.
“When we brought Don in a little under two years ago, the company was not in a strong place when I handed it to him,” he explained. “And he fixed a lot of important things, reduced costs and got us on the path to mobile.”
Now, the goal is to make Zynga return to a more proper form. “What has differentiated our company is that we got a whole new class of adults to pay and play and we have to do that again,” he said. He also believes that the company “needs to build our own network and cross-promotion ability.”
Pincus added, “Not having a clear goal leads to death by a thousand compromises,” although he was more positive in a statement he sent out to employees. “I am inspired by our upcoming products – it is the most exciting slate of mobile games in Zynga’s history with titles like Empires & Allies, Dawn of Titans and FarmVille: Harvest Swap. These games are coming on the heels of one of the most successful mobile launches in our history with Wizard of Oz Slots, which was launched this past November by our Spooky Cool team in Chicago.
“I am returning to the company that I love in order to accelerate innovation in the most popular categories like Action/Strategy and strengthen our focus on our core areas like Invest and Express,” he continued. “I look forward to partnering with our leaders to intensify our focus on social experiences for the millions of consumers who play our games.”
The full statement can be found here.
Whether it can recoup its losses – it was down $226 million last year, compared to a $37 million loss in 2013 – is too soon to tell at this point. Still, having someone familiar like Pincus in charge could lead the company in a new successful direction. Zynga’s still got over $1 billion in cash, and losses last quarter were only $4 million. That gives the company plenty of runway as it plans to release between six and ten new titles this year. The short term looks positive, and we’ll have to wait to see what long-term direction looks like under Pincus.
