 "<i>FarmVille</i> creator Zynga game for India story")
On his first visit to this city, he said he was impressed by the dedication and skills the employees of the company's centre here had demonstrated in the past two years.
"India is a terrific investment and experience for us. After San Francisco, this (India) becomes our biggest centre and we are growing more here than any other location," said Pincus. "When I started this company in 2007, we had just 25-30 people, and it is amazing to see now we have grown to around 400 people just in India."
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Zynga, best known for FarmVille, a popular game on Facebook, is going through a turbulent time in the recent past, primarily because of the sweeping changes in consumer behavior, with people spending more time on mobile phones than desktop computers.
The company, last year, had announced it would reduce around five per cent of its global workforce as a cost-cutting exercise, apart from shutting its studios in Britain and Japan. It had said it would phase out 13 of the older games.
Last month, the company, in a filing to the US market regulator, SEC, said that Pincus had opted to take an annual salary of just $1 in 2013 and forgo all cash bonuses.
"I did so because I am an owner of the company and I believe in its future. I want to make that really clear to the shareholders and the employees because they invest their money and energy for building this company," Pincus told Business Standard. He maintains majority control in the company, which he founded in 2007.
In early 2010, Zynga opened its India centre for core research and development (R&D) purposes. Subsequently, the company set up a gaming studio in the country, which started supporting Zynga's existing gaming titles by contributing new features and newer versions of those games.
The company said its Bangalore studio was developing a new gaming title completely, for the first time out of India. It did not specify by when the new game would be launched.
"In 2012, when we opened our India centre, it was primarily focused on core R&D on distributed computing. In the second phase, while continuing to do that, we set up the studio which took up large live games to develop features and content. Now, we are developing new IPs (intellectual properties) and new titles entirely out of India, which will be announced shortly," said Shan Kadavil, country manager for Zynga in India.
In 2012, Zynga reported $1.28 billion in revenue, an increase of 12 per cent from the previous year, though the net loss was $209 million. The company employs around 3,000 people across the globe.
GAMER PROFILE
- Zynga, best known for FarmVille, a popular game on Facebook is going through a turbulent time because of change in consumer behavior as people are spending more time on mobile phones rather than desktop computers
- In a filing to US market regulator SEC last month, Zynga said Pincus has opted to take an annual salary of just $1 in 2013 and forgo all cash bonuses
- The company said for it is developing a new gaming title completely, for the first time in India. It however did not specify the time frame by which the new game would be launched