Quote from blackdogHope my gravedig is not annoying.
Zynga buys UK game-maker NaturalMotion for $527m
friend of mine works in the London office, I hope no cuts are on the horizon for these guys.
I literally yelled out "NOOOOOOO" when I read this 
EDIT: To clarify, I'm happy for Torsten Reil et al but if Zynga's past is anything to go by then this is bad news for NM. Don Mattrick, you're our only hope...
Does Zynga now own just the games side or the middleware side as well?
The interesting thing is, from what i was told, that the company (NaturalMotion) seems to be more interested and aggressive on the game dev side, instead of the framework and licensing.I'd guess that every game will get the Zynga logo, and NM will keep its image for the technology.
The news makes me sad though
I hope not much changes for BossAlien. Great people there
Certainly interesting they'd spent half a billion dollars buying new studios at the same time as laying off over 300 people.
Quote from JordCertainly interesting they'd spent half a billion dollars buying new studios at the same time as laying off over 300 people.
i've read new layoffs are from infrastructural stuff. And the impression from outside is really that Zynga outgrew itself, with more "chrome" than "content".
They're very simply continuing to turn the Titanic around. They were once dominant on Facebook, so much so that their stock followed Facebook's through financial deals both parties had signed. They're now trying to become relevant on the mobile market, the only one that is going well for the types of games they know how to make. They had one of two choices in order to do that: the long route is trying to shift everything internally and acquire the knowledge over time, the short route is buying a well established player who can easily transfer all knowledge much faster.
Given they had the money, they went for the short route, especially with all the pressure they're getting from their investors. The move to cut the workforce is a simple cost-cutting move to instill confidence in their shareholders. Read, the shareholders asked for these cuts to be made so they would back the acquisition of Natural Motion.
Can't remember if there was another topic about the layoffs and stuff.
They're expanding in sports games
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