Social gaming developer Zynga, which is laying off about 5% of its global workforce as a cost-cutting exercise, is said to have outsourced the development and maintenance of its ‘The Ville’ title to the India centre.
The San Francisco-based company had opened its office in Bangalore in 2010. The company had said that the Bangalore centre would focus on end-to-end game development and would house about 100 developers.
Zynga’s Facebook games such as 'The Ville’ and 'Bingo’ were developed and supported by its Austin studio. The company has announced significant reduction of its workforce in Austin apart from shutting its Boston office.
In an internal note said to the employees, Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO of the San Francisco-headquartered company also proposed the closure of its studios in UK and Japan.
“In all, we will unfortunately be parting ways with approximately 5% of our full-time workforce. We don’t take these decisions lightly as we recognise the impact to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us,” the note said.
He said these initiatives “will improve our profitability and allow us to reinvest in great games and our Zynga network on web and mobile.”
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As a part of the cost-cutting exercise, Zynga announced it will discontinue 13 older games and significantly reduce investment in 'The Ville’.
The Ville was first released by the company on June 30, 2012. However, soon after the launch the game ran into trouble when another game developer Electronics Arts filed a lawsuit accusing Zynga of copying the design and game mechanics of its title ‘The Sims Social’.
As of the second quarter, the company had a headcount of 3,200 employees globally.