上个月，我们报导了Rockyou公司为转型开发社交游戏，裁减了大量员工。而在昨天又有一个消息指出该公司首席执行官Lance Tokuda离职，这不禁令我们十分好奇Rockyou究竟要驶向何方？因此我们联线Rockyou公司首席运营主管Lisa Marino了解情况。

Lance Tokuda

对这一消息，Marino表示Tokuda将会继续留在RockYou公司，负责创新和策略制定。她还特别强调Tokuda此前的决策和大量裁员都是基于RockYou重组大局所制定的。此前，RockYou公司虽然开发了Zoo World等几款游戏，但当时公司还忙于其他各种事务。因此，如果有人在业内问及RockYou，他可能会获得多种不同的回答。

为了更好地发展游戏领域，RockYou近来裁减了部分员工，聘请Marino所谓的“拥有开发优质游戏天赋”的新员工，如EA前任执行官Jonathan Knight等。同样是上个月，RockYou还关闭了旗下50多款应用。这一切都是为了实现RockYou的“转型”。

Marino表示未来RockYou“转型”后的新作即将问世，人们会看到与社交联系更为紧密的RockYou新产品。

当我们问及RockYou是如何打算与Zynga这种社交游戏巨头公司一竞高低时。Marino提出RovkYou公司的定位不单是游戏开发公司，尽管它的确致力于开发社交游戏，但Rockyou主要定位是“社交娱乐公司”。因此公司的业务还包含媒介和广告等方面，这些有利于帮助RockYou旗下游戏或者其他开发商盈利。

关于Rockyou的现状，Marino表示本年度公司的年收入成绩优越。其第四季度的盈利超过了第二季度和第三季度，但比第一季度略低。同时，Rockyou公司现有资金近1亿2700万美元，因此其投资方也希望可以在“转型”后获得丰厚的回报。毕竟其劲敌Slide最近以2亿2800万美元被谷歌公司收购。

最后Marino表示Tokuda离开CEO是基于Rockyou公司重组的计划考虑，Tokuda也同样认为“新版”Rockyou需要一位经验丰富，能够“三心二意”的首席执行官。目前在招聘期间，Rockyou主要由Maroni和现有的执行团队进行管理。“因为目前管理团队的表现优良，因此Rockyou有耐心好好寻找下一位CEO候选人。”

News broke late yesterday that Lance Tokuda is stepping down from his role as chief executive of social game- and app-maker RockYou. Coming barely more than a month after the company announced substantial layoffs, we started wondering where RockYou is headed. So I got on the phone with chief operating officer Lisa Marino to find out.

Marino emphasized that both Tokuda’s decision (he will remain at RockYou working on “innovation and strategic initiatives”) and the layoffs were part of a larger reorganization at RockYou as it focuses on social games. The company was already making games, such as Zoo World, but Marino said it was doing too many other things — if you asked people in the industry what RockYou did, you’d get “a mixed bag of answers.”

So RockYou laid off part of its workforce (it never said how much), hired new employees with what Marino called “the right DNA to build the good games” (such as former EA executive Jonathan Knight), and in the last month alone, it shut down more than 50 applications. RockYou has become “a really different place,” Marino said.

And we’ll see the fruits of this new focus in the next few months, she added, as RockYou unveils new products that will make it “very relevant” in the social games industry.

When I asked how RockYou hopes to stand out against giants like Zynga, Marino said the company isn’t just a game-maker. Yes, it’s focused on making games, but it’s also “a social entertainment company”. There’s a media and advertising side to RockYou’s business, which it uses to make money from its own games (so it’s not just tied to virtual goods) and to help other developers do the same.

“This was an aggressive move and a proactive move,” Marino said. “We’ve got a lot of money in the bank.”

Revenue is still strong, she added, with RockYou set to make more money in the fourth quarter of 2010 than it did in Q3 or Q2 (but not as much as Q1).

RockYou has raised $127 million in funding, so if its investors (including Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners) want to see a healthy return, they’ll need a bigger exit than rival Slide’s $228 million acquisition by Google.

Tokuda’s departure from the CEO role fit into that restructuring, Marino said, and it also came from his realization that as the company grows, it will need a “been here, done that” CEO with more experience growing organizations. For now, Marino and the rest of the current executive team are managing RockYou while the company searches for a replacement.

“Because the management team is doing well, we have the luxury of being patient to find the right candidate,” she said. （Source：VentureBeat）