1）据insidesocialgames报道，最近有网络传言称Zynga奥斯丁工作室已裁员超过100人，其裁员对象主要是《The Ville》和《Zynga Bingo》团队成员。

《The Ville》是Zynga奥斯丁工作室产品，该游戏最近引发了Zynga与EA之间的侵权官司，自6月份发布以来每月用户流失率将近45％。

zynga-anonymous(from techcrunch.com)

而Gamasutra报道也指出，Zynga已经裁员100多人，Zynga已关闭芝加哥和波士顿工作室；Techcrunch报道也确认了Zynga波士顿已经关闭，芝加哥团队裁员这一消息，《The Ville》已被移交给Zynga印度工作室（游戏邦注：据称Zynga印度工作室主要负责接手表现不济的游戏项目）。

Zynga首席执行官Mark Pincus日前也通过邮件正式确认了裁员，以及即将叫停的13款未具名的旧游戏等消息，并称将“极大减少在《The Ville》中的投入”，考虑关闭日本及英国工作室，目前裁员总数不足Zynga所有员工的5％。

2）据Techcrunch报道，Facebook首席执行官Mark Zuckerberg在第三季度财报会议上表示，当前Facebook社交游戏发展现状不甚如意。

zynga_facebook(from coversphoto.tk)

这其中一个重要原因是Zynga最近运营表现欠佳，Facebook来自Zynga的收益同比上年下降了20％。从整体上看，Zynga业务本季度在Facebook支付服务收益中占比43％，但在Facebook总体收益中仅占比7％（这还包括Zynga广告投入）。而去年Zynga在Facebook支付服务收益中占比高达63％，在Facebook总收益中占比12％。

Facebook第三季度支付服务收益已下滑至1.76亿美元，比去年同期的1.56亿美元下降13％。不过Zuckberg指出，Kixeye、Wooga和King.com等较小社交游戏开发商在一定程度上弥补了Zynga运势下滑的缺口，Facebook来自游戏领域的收益已同比上年增长40％。

3）据GamesIndustry International报道，免费MMO游戏公司Bigpoint近日裁员120人，其首席执行官Heiko Hubertz也宣布离职，但在年底前将担任公司顾问委员会执行主席，并表示其离任与本次裁员无关。

heiko_hubertz(from deutsche-startups.de)

报道称该公司在其德国汉堡总部裁员80人，在旧金山工作室（成立于2010年）裁员40人。Hubertz表示在美国开发游戏对公司来说“并非有效方式”。在今年8月份，该公司还遣散了近30名员工，缩减了其移动游戏开发业务。

该公司发言人表示，旧金山工作室仍是其汉堡总部之外最强大的海外工作室，该团队将专注于发行网络及合作伙伴关系等业务。

4）据gamasutra报道，Double Fine Produtions工作室总裁Tim Schafer在最近采访中表示，他认为游戏公司在完成一个开发项目后就开始裁员是一种很糟糕的做法，因为此举会导致团队原先掌握的经验教训全部流失，从而影响下一款游戏的开发工作。

tim-schafer(from gamingangels.com)

他表示自己的《Psychonauts》开发完工后，如果进行裁员就可能省下大批资金和时间以便投入开发《Brutal Legend》，但这样做意味着解散一个已经了解彼此合作之道的团队，并且这也意味着雇主并不关心员工的利益，从而让员工产生“我们还有必要为这种公司效力吗？”这种消极想法。

5）据《赫芬顿邮报》报道，麦当劳最近移除了旗下虚拟世界HappyMeal.com的社交功能“forward-to-a-friend”，原因是该功能违反了儿童在线隐私保护法（游戏邦注：HappyMeal.com网站除了向儿童供应游戏，还支持用户输入Happy Meal代码以解琐在线奖励）。

happy-meal(from blogs.orlandosentinel.com)

隐私保护团体The Center for Digital Democracy向美国联邦贸易委员会投诉称该功能使用了欺骗性营销手段，诱使未成年用户在未经家长许可的情况下泄露了自己好友的电子邮箱地址。

在今年3月份，社交游戏公司RockYou也曾因非法搜集约17.9万名儿童（多数儿童不足13岁）的个人信息而招致25万美元民事罚款，并被勒令每隔一年就进行一次安全监察（持续20年）。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Zynga lets 100+ employees go, closes Boston studio and contemplating more closures

Mike Thompson

Zynga has reportedly let over 100 employees go from its Austin office, according to rumors on the web.

The story broke by Justin Maxwell on Twitter, who learned about the events from a friend who was dismissed. Details are sketchy right now, but those who were let go were apparently on The Ville and Zynga Bingo teams. We’ve reached out to Zynga and are awaiting a response.

The Austin office was the studio behind The Ville, the social game currently serving as the eye of a particularly nasty legal storm between Zynga and Electronic Arts. Since the game launched in June its initial traffic surge has quickly fallen off, losing approximately 45 percent of its users each month.

Update #1: Gamasutra is reporting it can confirm the 100+ layoffs, as well as more rumors that Zynga shut down its offices in both Chicago and Boston. We’re still waiting a response from the company itself.

Update #2: TechCrunch has confirmed Zynga Boston is closed down, as well as the earlier reported layoffs over at Chicago. The sit also reports The Ville is being transferred over to the company’s India office, which is where it sends games that have been sunsetted.

Update #3: Zynga has confirmed the layoffs, as well as the sunsetting of 13 unspecified older games, including “significantly reducing our investment in The Ville.” Zynga is also considering closing its Japan and UK studios. The total number of staff currently dismissed is less than 5 percent of Zynga’s total workforce. Below is the letter CEO Mark Pincus sent to Zynga employees today.

Team,

Earlier today we initiated a number of changes to streamline our operations, focus our resources on our most strategic opportunities, and invest in our future. We waited to share this news with all of you until we had first spoken with the groups impacted.

As part of these changes, we’ve had to make some tough decisions around products, teams and people.  I want to fill you in on what’s happened and address any concerns you may have.

Here are the most important details.

We are sunsetting 13 older games and we’re also significantly reducing our investment in The Ville.

We are closing the Zynga Boston studio and proposing closures of the Zynga Japan and UK studios.  Additionally, we are reducing staffing levels in our Austin studio.  All of these represent terrific entrepreneurial teams, which make this decision so difficult.

In addition to these studios, we are also making a small number of partner team reductions.

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 recognize the impact to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us.  We appreciate their amazing contributions and will miss them.

This is the most painful part of an overall cost reduction plan that also includes significant cuts in spending on data hosting, advertising and outside services, primarily contractors.

These reductions, along with our ongoing efforts to implement more stringent budget and resource allocation around new games and partner projects, will improve our profitability and allow us to reinvest in great games and our Zynga network on web and mobile.

Zynga made social gaming and play a worldwide phenomenon, and we remain the industry leader.  Our success has come from our dedication to a simple and powerful proposition – that play is not just something people do to pass time, it’s a core need for every person and culture.

We will all be discussing these difficult changes more with our teams and as a company.  Tomorrow, Dave and I will be hosting a post-earnings webcast (details to follow) and next week we will be discussing our broader vision and strategy during our quarterly all-hands meeting.  I’m confident this puts us on the right path to deliver on the promise of social gaming and make Zynga into an internet treasure.

If you have any immediate questions, I hope you will talk directly with your manager, Colleen, or me.

I look forward to talking with you tomorrow.

Mark（source：insidesocialgames）

2）Zuckerberg: The games ecosystem is growing

AJ Glasser

Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the Facebook’s games ecosystem “is not doing as well as I’d like” today on Facebook’s Q3 earnings call.

Payments revenue from social game giant Zynga dropped 20 percent for Facebook compared to Q3 2011. In total, Zynga made up 43 percent of Facebook’s Payments revenue this quarter and just 7 percent of Facebook’s total revenue (including Zynga’s ad spend). This is down significantly from previous quarters where Zynga has made up as much as 63 percent of Payments revenue (last year) and 12 percent of total revenues (at the point of Facebook’s IPO).

Even so, Zuckerberg says the games ecosystem as a whole is growing with revenues from other game developers increasing 40 percent over the last year since Payments was made mandatory for game developers. Payments (and other fees) revenue for Q3 was up year on year almost 13 percent from $156 million to $176 million.

Zynga’s Q3 earnings call is scheduled for Oct. 24. Reports today indicate a large number of its employees were laid off earlier this morning and its Boston studio was closed.（source：insidesocialgames）

3）120 employees let go from Bigpoint, CEO resigns [Update]

Mike Thompson

Free-to-play MMO developer Bigpoint has just laid off 120 people and CEO Heiko Hubertz is stepping down from his position.

According to the article, the company has let go 80 people from its headquarters in Hamburg, Germany, and 40 people from the San Francisco office it established in 2010. Speaking to GamesIndustry International, Hubertz said developing games in the United States “is not really the most efficient way for us at the moment” between the lack of successful games the company’s developed and the competitive market created by the Bay Area. Back in August, the company dismissed almost 30 people as it scaled back on its mobile development efforts.

According to Hubertz, Bigpoint’s revenues have doubled year-over-year and the company’s been hiring based on expected growth, which it hasn’t seen this year. As a result, the company’s cutting employees mostly from within its administrative ranks and claims that none of its current games in development will see any effects from the layoffs.

Hubertz is going to transition to the company’s advisory board as an executive chairmen sometime before the year ends, but tells GamesIndustry his departure as CEO isn’t related to the layoffs in any way.

We’ve reached out to Bigpoint for further details about the layoffs and how its San Francisco office will be effected. If we receive a response, we’ll update this article.

Update: Inquiring about the state of the San Francisco office, we’re told by a company spokesperson it still has a healthy population: “The San Francisco office remains the strongest international office outside of our headquarters in Hamburg, Germany; our office will focus on the strength of our distribution network and partnerships – with business units in Business Development and Marketing here.”（source：insidesocialgames）

4）Tim Schafer: Stop laying off your employees once a game is done

By Mike Rose

“Instead of being allowed to apply all those lessons to a better, more efficiently produced second game, they are scattered to the winds and all that wisdom is lost.”

- Double Fine Productions president Tim Schafer argues that laying off staff following the completion of a game’s development is a big mistake.

“One of the most frustrating things about the games industry is that teams of people come together to make a game, and maybe they struggle and make mistakes along the way, but by the end of the game they’ve learned a lot – and this is usually when they are disbanded,” he continues.

Schafer notes that after the conclusion of Double Fine’s own Psychonauts, he very well could have laid staff off, such that the studio would have more money and time to put into Brutal Legend.

“But doing so would have meant breaking up a team that had just learned how to work well together. And what message would that have sent to our employees? It would say that we’re not loyal to them, and that we don’t care.”

“Which would make them wonder,” he adds, “‘Why should we be loyal to this company?’ If you’re not loyal to your team you can get by for a while, but eventually you will need to rely on their loyalty to you and it just won’t be there.”

Schafer’s thoughts on layoffs in the industry come as Tantalus CEO Tom Crago recently said that, due to the volatile nature of the video game industry at the moment, it’s impossible for any studio to say that its staff will be secure in their jobs in the coming years. （source：gamasutra）

5）McDonald’s yanks social features from kids-oriented online portal

Mike Thompson

Fast food giant McDonald’s has removed the HappyMeal.com’s social features after it was accused of violating child online privacy laws.

The Huffington Post reports McDonald’s announced it removed the virtual world’s “forward-to-a-friend” feature following a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. Privacy advocacy group The Center for Digital Democracy accused McDonald’s of ignoring the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and using deceptive marketing practices to get underage users to give up their friends email addresses without acquiring parental permission.

HappyMeal.com not only provides games for kids to play, it also allows lets users input Happy Meal codes to unlock site rewards. The upper left hand of the site now includes the message “Hey Kids, this is advertising!” though it isn’t apparent if this was in place before Friday’s changes.

Meanwhile, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Science in the Public Interest are also planning to file FTC complaints against groups like General Mills, Subway, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

The FTC is clearly taking a more active role in going after groups who violate the Children’s Online Privacy Act. Back in March, RockYou finally settled with the FTC after it collected information from roughly 179,000 children (many of whom were younger than 13-years-old) without their parents’ consent. The settlement required the company to pay a $250,000 civil penalty and submit to security audits every other year for 20 years.（source：insidesocialgames）