Some interesting things are happening behind-the-scenes at Zynga.

The company behind such popular games as the FarmVille franchise has reported a loss of $61 million in the first quarter of 2014, which is down 36 percent year-over-year. However, it did manage to exceed Wall Street’s expectations.

“In Q1 our teams delivered a solid start to the year against our strategic frame of growing and sustaining our franchises, creating new hits and driving efficiencies. We have established a strong base for 2014 and believe we are pacing well for a year of growth,” said Don Mattrick, CEO of Zynga. “For the first time in two years, our teams delivered sequential growth across our key performance metrics including bookings, Adjusted EBITDA, mobile bookings mix and audience. We believe these indicators demonstrate our strategy is working and the focus, rigor and discipline of our teams is showing up in our results.”

He added, “I am particularly proud of the FarmVille team’s commitment to franchise growth, especially as it relates to last week’s worldwide launch of FarmVille 2: Country Escape. Since the launch, we have seen more than 4 million installs of the game and received great feedback from our players. We are pleased with the team’s execution and encouraged by the early indicators we are seeing.”

In addition to the profit report, the company has shuffled the exec team quite a bit this week. Founder Mark Pincus has stepped down from his role of Chief Product Officer in order to focus as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

However, some new hires has been made as well. Alex Garden, a former general manage of Xbox Live and founder of developer Relic Entertainment, as joined Zynga as the President of its studio division, along with Henry LaBounta, who has 30 years worth of experience between such companies as EA and Microsoft. He joins the company as its first Chief Visual Officer. Jennifer Knuckles, working with brands such as Clorox, has also joined on as the Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to COO Clive Downie.

Source: GamesIndustry International