I was one of the 520 people laid off by Zynga yesterday. What do you wanna know about Zynga? AMA

What kind of snacks were in the break room?

Depends on the room, but the basics were granola bars, cookies, liquorish bites, kettle chips, pop chips, pretzel bites, hard boiled eggs, cereal, nuts, chex mix, coffee and tea.

Thanks for the actual answer man, good luck finding a new job!

I love that this is the top rated question!

licorice or liquor-ish?

Yes...

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Yeah, once the Redbull and Odwalla went away everything went downhill.

Do you have have unlimited energy on all the Zynga games?

Nope. We had to pay like everyone else.

or could just update the live database ;-)

True. But why would you if you were on a live team? If you're on a team that has gone live, then you've probably been playing that game for almost a year before it's hit the public market. At that point, you don't care. You know the game inside and backwards. Yeah, you can give yourself unlimited energy, but who gives a shit?

What percent of users actually pay real money in Zynga games?

Depends on the game, but on average I think it's about 5%. Maybe less.

Thinking about it though, that's a lot of people and a lot of money.

The big games deal in Millions of DAU (Daily Average Users). If 3 million users pay an average of $0.20 you're getting $600k a day!

That's huge numbers!!

No questions here, just wanted to compliment the OP on some excellently detailed and generous responses - a great AMA. Honourable mention to the other ex-Zyngite also throwing in some answers.

Thanks!

How do you feel about the revolving door mentality for employees working in a lot of development studios (basically as soon as the game gets done there is a mass layoff)?

It's the worst aspect of working in the industry, easily. It's an unstable industry and you have to accept that you're going to lose your job, and change companies multiple times throughout your career.

Some people in normal industries can get a job, work there for 40 years and retire. That's virtually impossible in the games industry.

I know you say "some people", but to be fair, you'd be hard pressed to find a job for life (or 40 years) in pretty much any industry.

Unless you were born into it.

True. This is less common these days. I grew up thinking you'd work in one place your whole life, retire at 60, yada yada yada. Not the case. Especially in the games industry.

Zynga has always made an effort at keeping talent around. One of the reasons why they had to do such a mass layoff was because so many people were kept as FTE while projects were transitioned off.

Very true. Before all these layoffs they started cracking down on head count for all the teams because they had too many employees but not enough projects for them all. They tried hard to keep everyone around, which I really respected. I think they just hit critical mass and finally had to let us go.

What (if anything) do you think they did right as a company?

They really try hard to keep morale high. They give so many perks that you really get accustomed to it. I ate two out of three meals for free at work every day. It was awesome. And they provided healthy options! They promoted volunteering. Going green. They really tried hard to be a good place to work and a socially conscious company. In that way, they're really great.

On the games side of things I think their whole concept of pulling data on everything players do is amazing. However their over reliance on that is not so amazing. It made the development very analytical, and less intuitive. It's easy to tell when a game is fun. It's hard to pull data on that though.

Do you think they have a sound business strategy? i mean its doubtful if they are laying off so many people but i just assumed they would be making a killing. edit removed second question because i all of a sudden learned to read haha.

Oh hell no. Their business strategy is terrible.

Their major issues are the inability to adjust to the changing market. They did great when Facebook gaming was on the rise, but now it's declining and Mobile is on the rise. They're trying to change over, but employ too many of the same game development "best practices" that were developed for Facebook games. These just don't translate to the mobile market, which is why they're suffering in that market.

There's also lots of other issues internally.

A lot of micro-management from the top down that stifles the creativity and hinders the production of many games.

An over reliance on every game being a blockbuster hit which makes the fun aspect of games suffer while making the money grabbing tactics all too transparent to the users.

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.

What are the benefits of working at Zynga?

Lots of perks, like a gym in the building, three free meals a day, happy hour every Friday with free booze, unlimited vacation days. Not everyone takes advantage of them all. I loved getting a free 15 minute massage once a week.

Companies that have all the cool shit on campus out in the building are trying to make sure you don't leave, I've heard. Tears down the necessary work/life separation people need. Hopefully zynga are cool about people going home on time.

Exactly. We also had a campus in an area of SF that had very little around it. So the temptation to eat out was minimal.

unlimited vacation. that's my kinda job.

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^ This.

The general rule was take one week per quarter. Some teams strictly enforced this. Others it was impossible to actually get away.

Also, depending on the employee, perhaps, they paid for a cell phone line. I had a work issued iPhone 4S with an unlimited data plan. Of course, they took that phone back yesterday. :(

Me too.

Did they offer separation package? Hope you find another position soon!!

Yep. I can't say for sure that everyone got what I did. But I got four months salary plus an additional week for each partial year. I worked almost two years, so I got 4.5 months paid. Plus insurance is paid on top of that.

Damn, thats pretty awesome. Were you in a management position?

Nope. Not at all.

Do you know any dirty secrets or scandals about the company ?

Nothing that probably hasn't already been reported. I think the worst during my time was the law suit against the c-staff for insider knowledge. When the company went public the shares were $10. At their peak they were $15 and the c-staff had a special clause that allowed them to sell early. They sold something like 15 or 20% of their shares when the stocks were at their highest. By the time employees could sell for the first time it had dropped to $8 a share. After that window closed, the stock price had dropped to $4 or $5 by the next time employees could sell. I guess the investors were pissed that the top brass made out like bandits and everyone else got screwed.

Just how prolific is their theft of other games?

That's a broad question. But it varies. They got a lot better recently. After The Ville got sued by EA it was much less okay to "fast follow" a game (The term for copying a game).

I think that early on it was blatant. Later it became well known practice at Zynga, but rather poor taste. Dream Heights/Tiny Tower was a big slap in the face. Sims Social/The Ville was the last straw. Towards the end of my time it was not so much that games were straight up ripped off, but key features would be. Such as the general method or menu flow that a game handles it's multiplayer. The idea being that if it works for that game, it would work for our game.

In general though, most of us knew what game was copying what. Bubble Safari was a copy of Bubble Witch Saga. The Ville was Sims Social. Hidden Chronicles was Gardens of Time. The company didn't call it out for what it was, but you knew because whatever project you were on most likely had similar pressures to match and beat a game on the market.

Did you have a feeling previously that you were going to be laid off? Are they providing you benefits to help find another job? Also, I wish you the best in your new career search!

I had no idea this was coming. Totally out of the blue. I knew things weren't great at the company but I wasn't expecting layoffs at this point and I wasn't expecting to be part of it if it did happen. I did get a nice severance package and benefits. So I'm pretty well set for a while and I have a lot of friends and former co-workers in other parts of the industry. So I've got a lot of leads already.

To add to this, after the previous round, the 5% cut, they seemed to give reassurances that that was a one time thing for the foreseeable future. I'd think that the remaining employees are a lot more wary, now that they've seen what can happen.

So true. The last lay-offs sounded very rare and uncommon the way they presented it to us. Part of the reason I didn't see this coming on Monday.

Why do you think you were one of the laid-off people? Was it random or were you involved in a failed or not-so-successful project?

For me I know that I was low-man on the totem pole. I was a valuable and well like person in my team. My boss is actively attempting to find me a new job. But the fact is that the few people on my team were crucial to continued development, where as I was a support aspect to the team.

I never played any of their games because I could see everything was a clone or designed to make me buy stuff. Was there anything the staff felt was actually worth playing?

Oh yeah. I mean a lot of the people there genuinely loved the games. I was never really a fan either, but there were some that I played.

I think that a lot of freemium games suffer from the obvious fact that they're asking for money. But that's what you get from a free game, right? I mean Zynga wasn't making games to be charitable. It's a business. So the games they provided were free, and most people never paid. And for them that was fine.

I think a lot of gamers look at that with disdain because they hate the idea of paying to win. It takes the sport out of the game and makes it unfair. If I could pay $1 and win a deathmatch round of Halo I'd be a cheating asshole. But that's because everyone playing Halo already dropped $60 to play that game and it's also just not fair.

The playing field for freemium games is different. Farmville isn't a deathmatch. It's a solo grind that requires players to spend time and spam their friends to advance. If you don't want to do either, you can spend a dollar. The general attitude with freemium is that if you're going to pay us, we'll let you skip through the game as fast as you want. Because, who cares? We get the money, and you get to save some time. We both win.

I'm not saying it's for everyone. But there's clearly a market for this kinda gaming.

How much longer will Zynga be around for?

Hard to say. At this rate, I'd give them another 2 to 3 years. They make money and have a lot in the bank. But they also throw away money like you wouldn't believe.

If they actually manage to change their strategy and start putting out some big hits, they could be around a lot longer.

What do you think the odds are that they do change their strategy and end up staying around longer?

I'd give them 10:1. The CEO is hellbent on believing that their current course is the correct course.

Do you think they'll get into the real-money online poker market? Online poker will be back eventually, and Jesus H Christ Zynga could rake in tons of money if they made it easy to get their money in.

Commented on this in other replies. But yes, they could if they were first to market. The problem being that other companies have been into Real Money Gambling in other countries for much longer than Zynga. And so it's unlikely for them to be the victors when RMG hits the US.

Are the top brass really as big of assholes as they seem?

In general, they're all fairly good guys. However I think there's a lot of the old c-staff that came to Zynga for the money. They're guys who made a name in the industry working on big games, saw an opportunity to make some big bucks in a new market, hopped in, cashed out and took off. The guys that are still around are doing what they can, but it's kind of like trying to sail a sinking ship. Everyone has ideas on how to change things, and each new change makes more problems.

I heard Zynga is expanding into the gambling sector. Surely there's huge money there. Do you know anything about that?

Yeah, they want to get into real money gambling. Here's the issues...

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?

I don't blame Zynga for going after this market, and I honestly believed this could be the saving grace for Zynga. But they are Johnny-come-lately to this market.

In theory, they might be able to make tons of money on RMG. But in reality, there are a dozen other companies that have been doing it longer and better.

Do you like milk?

No. It upsets my stomach.

Hi, thanks for doing this AMA.

If there are any, were there any games that looked great on paper and you thought was going to be great, but in reality didnt work?

Any games you thought was going to be a succes, but got scraped?

You're welcome, and thank you!

Yes. Honestly most of the games look great on paper. But that's kinda true of every game ever. Ideas are great. But once you play it, sometimes it's not actually as great as it seems.

There was one in mobile that was a dragonvale style game. You bred dragons. But it also had an angry birds component. You used the dragons to fire different kinds of fireballs at pirate ships that were encroaching on your territory. In theory it seemed great. Sounded totally fun. In reality it was kind of a Frankenstein of both games and neither part worked because both aspects were tacked on by the executive staff late in the dev cycle.

There always seemed to be a lot of games like that. They were 70% awesome. They just needed a little push to make them great. But the teams weren't left alone to make the final adjustments. Someone up top would always feel like they knew what had to be done. So some major (and often uninformed) changes were pushed on the team and they would be forced to change features that would ultimately disrupt the rest of the game and cause the entire project to fail.

I've been to the SF office it's pretty crazy awesome there, is it like that at all their offices?

No. The SF office is the craziest by far.

Tell us about the highs and lows of departmental competition would you? Wasn't it encouraged by zynga?

It wasn't necessarily encouraged. It wasn't like the midcore division was trying to out perform the casual gaming division.

But ultimately you wanted to make a game that went live and made tons of money. If you did you got all the best perks.

There were things that were available to everyone in the company, like the gym and free food. But if you were on a top grossing team then you got additional perks, like trips to Vegas and other off-site excursions.

The problem being that some games inherently had better opportunities for success. Farmville 2 was destined to succeed as it had all the best of the best working on it and every spare dollar thrown at it. Smaller games had to perform at the same level with fewer resources and a smaller time frame.

There was always the chance that your small game could blow up and be huge. But odds were that if you were on a Farmville or Poker game, you were going to do much better than someone on an unproven new IP.

• With regards to developments in Zynga performance and stock price, how did employee perception of the situation change during those periods of time ?
• Could you elaborate on infamous game copying.
• What was the culture and expectation like initially, did it then evolve ?

I started just as the company was going public. At the time everyone was REALLY excited. For people who had been there for a long time, it meant that a lot of the bonuses they had been accruing would finally pay off. The rest of us were happy to be a part of a company that was gonna hit big and we were on the ground floor... All that quickly dissipated after the stock plummeted from $15 to $8 by the first selling window. Now the stock has lingered around $3 for 8 months. It's kind of a joke. Everyone kinda hopes it will go up, but at the same time everyone knows there's no guarantee.

As for the copying, I feel I've touched on that in other comments. But if you have specific additional questions, let me know.

The culture was...weird. At least for me. I've never been a corporate kind of person. So it was hard to adjust. One of the weirder things was the obsession with dogs.

I like dogs. They're great. I grew up with them. Never really wanted to take one to work. But it's highly encouraged there. And kind of obsessed over. Some of the dogs were cool. Some were barking assholes I wanted to punch in the face. It's kind of like a crying baby on an airplane. It sucks, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Beyond all that, the culture had a major dichotomy. There were the people that saw through the bullshit and were there to get a paycheck and take advantage of what was offered. And there were those who loved the company and everything they did and truly believed in the company mission and every game that launched. From my perspective, more people that made the games were in the cynical camp, and more people that worked in the support groups (HR, legal, etc) were in the spirit squads. But that's not a hard rule.

General business practice to not "reinvent the wheel", however do you think it was a bad business move to actually make the idea taking so noticable?

How much rework is done on a video game besides just the remaining of the game?

If I understand you correctly, you're asking how much more work is done beyond just copying a game?

It always sounds so simple. Like you're just going to copy a game the same way you'd throw a document on a Xerox machine and press a button. It's not that simple. Maybe a few games were that obviously blatant, but most weren't. There were a lot of aspects that were reused. Maybe the layout of a menu. The general design of a feature (or core loop of a game). But for the most part, everything was still made from scratch.

If the games were just straight up copies, it would be a lot easier. But no one on the teams actually wants to do that. So they try to make the content as original as possible. So the game takes as long to make as any other game would.

have you ever heard of zynga going after a company for copying one of their games?

Not off the top of my head, but any game that tried to go live with the "XVille" kind of name got hit by the legal team. If you made a game called Redditville, you'd get a letter from the Zynga legal team.

also were you given a severence package? if so did you feel it fair? "departing employee" made it sound like you knew it was coming before i continued to read the letter. did you know you were getting laid off prior to the letter?

I did get a severance package (see previous reply). The letter came after I had been told by my boss I was getting laid off. I'd stood in a line for 30 minutes, and sat in a waiting room for almost two hours by the time I got that letter.

What are your plans for finding a new job? Will you work in the same industry considering the plummeting job market?

I'm currently taking some time to consider all my options. The industry is rough. There's always that looming threat of getting laid off. And it sucks. I know there's no guarantee in any job. But I'm considering looking to other industries where my skills would be applicable. But if I get offered a great game industries job, I wouldn't turn it down. It's still a fun and exciting industry. The stability is just crap.

From what I read, Zynga did not focus much on mobile development. What do you think? Would you like to continue in the social gaming industry or you'd prefer to take your creative talents elsewhere?

Well Zynga's major focus now is Mobile. They're just not making a great transition into it. They're great at Facebook games, but it's just not the same thing.

I wouldn't mind staying in social gaming. I started in consoles. One thing I really miss is having a physical copy of the product I've helped to create. It's nice being able to grab someone's iPhone and direct them to the game you've made and make them download it for free. But when that game gets cancelled, it no longer exists. ANYWHERE. That's pretty depressing.

I honestly don't care where I work, as long as I enjoy what I'm doing and feel passionate about what I'm making. Mobile...console...As long as someone out there enjoys what I'm creating, I'm happy.

Was buying Draw-Something really worth it for Zynga?

A LOT of my friends stopped playing right after Zynga bought it, perhaps they are just tired of the game or it did get affected with the purchase by Zynga.

No. It was a major financial fuck up.

Whether or not people stopped playing because Zynga bought OMGPop was minimal.

The problem was that they paid top dollar for a game/studio that had already hit their peak. At the time Zynga was on top of the world and had money to burn. They burned that money on a studio/game that held huge potential and didn't pan out. It's no fault of OMGPop. They cashed out at the best time possible. But Zynga had a tendency to buy better games than they could make.

Zynga bought Words with Friends and Draw Something. I challenge you to name a game that they made that did better and is better known. There's one game that did better, but those two are the best known games and both were shitty money makers.

If you had to tell one story about zynga to deter all customers what would it be?

Honestly, the Customer Service at Zynga is pretty top notch. They always tried really hard to keep customers happy. They even held events where the rest of us helped out as CS on a few customer service tickets so that we could have a closer connection to our players. From those I learned that general rule was to verify purchases, but if you couldn't, just hook the player up with some free credits. You can tell if someone is scamming the system. But most people are just getting screwed by bugs in the game. So if you throw some premium currency at them, they're more than happy to keep playing.

What was your favorite Zynga game? Slingo? Which games did you specifically work on and what did you do?

My favorites were Chess with Friends and Draw Something (1 and 2).

I know you guys copied some games that did pretty well. When it came to culture, how did you guys end up choosing which games to make? What kind of video game trends did you guys go by?

Money. What ever made the most money. That was the biggest factor.

Some new games in development were based on opportunity. Like looking at what makes money in consoles, but isn't represented in Mobile and trying to make the next big hit there. But at the same time, there's always something that hit the market first. So those were always hindered by what the predecessors had accomplished, "Well if X game made Y money, we could never make more than Y+Z"

What sort of education would one need to get into this line of work?

Depends on the job.

Artists, you don't need a degree. You need talent.

Designers, you need experience and connections. Education helps, but experience is best.

Programmers, you need talent and the ability to prove your worth, socially. (Many lack skills in communication and social etiquette.) Education is great, but acceptability (within a team) is best.

Producers, you need exceptional communication and organizational talents. Education is good, but managerial talents are best.

Clash of Clans on iOS is doing well.. supercell is making 1 mil a day off of microtransactions?

So much more than 1m a day from what I understand. Yes. Clash of Clans is doing well. That's the understatement of the year.

Where are you job hunting and how many of you are RoR developers? I need a few good engineers

Not a programmer. Can't speak to RoR...

do you play words with friends while working with your coworkers?

Yes. And I do consider my coworkers friends, if that's what you're asking.

have you met burt reynolds?

No. But I've seen Smokey and the Bandit.

single or double ply?

I prefer double ply. But at Zynga they provide single ply.

Why did they have to ruin Draw Something?

What, in your opinion, was ruined by Zynga?

How easily will you find a new gig? I'm guessing somewhat easy, as much as I see mobile dev jobs on HN (my gig included, not games tho).

I hope it will be no problem...time will tell..

cassie? I know it's a long shot considering you're one of many. If you are her though you can reply to me in text you know how to get ahold of me ;P

Not Cassie.

Did you ever imagine working at a social games company when you started working in the games industry? Were the people working there passionate or was it just like a normal job?

I never imagined working in games to start with. I fell into it. Social gaming didn't even exist when I started in the industry. Money is like gravity. You get drawn to the largest piles.

Yes. Some people were completely passionate about the industry and market. Social/casual/freemium gaming are things that some people love. Even the developers. Not everyone. I'm somewhere in the middle, I think. I understand the appeal, but I don't love the games. I tolerate them. The same could be said for online multiplayer versions of CoD for me. I don't love it, but I understand it.

How many total developers did Zynga employ?

Did they do any development work with contractors?

Did they have any development teams offshore?

Hard to say what the official numbers were. I know that there were close to 3000 employees prior to the layoffs. At the SF HQ, where I worked, there were almost 2000.

Yes, there was dev work with contractors. There were internal contractors, that were hired to work for specific timeframes. There were also external studios hire to develop games for zynga.

Was Zynga aware that in countries like Indonesia, Zynga's Play money poker chips are traded for actual currency? Living in Indonesia for 2 years was eye opening for me.... The value of 1,000,000 play chips = 2500 IDR = 25 cents. Zynga was swift with banning accounts purposely dumping chips.

I can't comment on this, just because I wasn't involved with that aspect of the company. A CS agent for those games would know more.

Does this mean Facebook is going down? Please say yes.

Oh no. Facebook and Zynga are no longer closely linked. Don't expect Facebook to fail because of Zynga.

Creative position, is that a nice way of saying you were not that special? Are they going to replace you with current employees and save money?

Nope. Creative meaning non-technical. I wasn't a programmer. I was a full time employee. No one is taking over my spot. Or anyone else's position who was laid-off. All the teams still at the company will have to continue to perform as before, but with smaller head count.

Zynga going to have real money poker games?

Yes. They have it in the UK now I believe. But legislation prevents it from hitting the US. Although there is a lobby team working on this now...