Less than a year ago, Zynga , the online games maker behind Words With Friends and other titles, brought back its founder, Mark Pincus,...
Less than a year ago, Zynga, the online games maker behind Words With Friends and other titles, brought back its founder, Mark Pincus, to run the struggling company.
On Tuesday, Zynga said Mr. Pincus would leave as chief executive once again.
Zynga, based in San Francisco, appointed Frank Gibeau, a board member and longtime game industry executive, as its chief executive as of March 7. Mr. Pincus will become executive chairman.
The changes in the executive suite at Zynga are strikingly similar to earlier management reshuffles at the company. In 2013, Mr. Pincus handed the chief executive job to Don Mattrick, who had spent 15 years at Electronic Arts, betting that his experience in the games industry could help lead a turnaround.
By April of last year, that turnaround had not arrived. Mr. Mattrick left and Mr. Pincus returned to the top job. Zynga’s stock now trades at $2.16 a share, lower than when Mr. Pincus became chief executive for the second time.
And so Mr. Pincus and Zynga are again bringing in new blood. Like Mr. Mattrick, Mr. Gibeau, 47, worked for most of his career — more than two decades — at Electronic Arts, the publisher behind big PC and console games like Madden NFL and The Sims.
In an email to Zynga employees, Mr. Pincus said that he recruited Mr. Gibeau to join Zynga’s board seven months ago and that since then Mr. Gibeau had advised and coached game development teams at the company.
“Frank has a history of developing strong teams and shipping market-leading games,” Mr. Pincus wrote. “He is a seasoned leader with the experience to quickly navigate the kinds of challenges we face on a weekly basis.”
Zynga was once a highflier, one of the first of a new era of game companies that created social games that let friends play one another on Facebook. But as many Facebook users began to tire of endless electronic invitations to play FarmVille and other Zynga games, Facebook made it harder for app makers to broadcast solicitations, hurting Zynga’s growth.
At the same time, Zynga was slow to recognize that mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad were becoming the biggest new opportunity for game start-ups, helping to create huge hits like Clash of Clans and Candy Crush.
While Zynga has shifted its focus to mobile, the company still has not managed to match its earlier success and has spent several years reducing its costs. The company had 1,669 employees at the end of last year, down from 3,058 three years earlier, according to filings with regulators.
After paying $228 million for a huge building to house its headquarters in San Francisco four years ago, Zynga recently said it would sell the building and lease space from the new owner.
“While we’re not yet the company we aspire to be, it’s clear to me that Zynga has significant strengths that it can thrive on,” Mr. Gibeau said in an email to Zynga employees on Tuesday.
(via nytimes)
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