CNN listed the top 10 “Tech Fails” of 2012, numbering among them Apple Maps, Facebook IPO and SOPA. Also on the list was Zynga, describing it like a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode.
“Zynga was riding high. Love them or hate them, its games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille were everywhere, clogging up Facebook pages and spurring millions of bored casual gamers to pay real cash for virtual cows,” writes Doug Gross. “Then, it all came crumbling down.”
October saw Zynga announcing that 5 percent of its employees would be laid off, shutting down Zynga Boston and proposing the closure of other studios in Japan and England. The announcement was made during Apple’s iPad Mini event, and if the attempt was to bury the news, it failed wildly.
“Facebook, which gets a cut when people spend money on games such as FarmVille, said that income from Zynga was down 20 percent over last year,” noted Gross. “And, like unskilled mafia warriors, Zynga shot itself in the foot again in March when it bought the company that makes mobile game Draw Something for an eye-popping $180 million. But fascination with Draw Something dropped off fast. When’s the last time you played “
Source: CNN.com
