Mike Isaac

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Zynga to Shutter More Offices, Lay Off Some Workers

zynga_HQ_outdoorsZynga plans to close a handful of offices in an attempt to better consolidate its real estate, the company announced on Monday.

The changes will close an office in New York, two in Texas, and one in Baltimore, Md. However, employees at three of the locations will be moved to other existing offices nearby, consolidating the workforce across fewer offices nationwide.

“In an effort to leverage resources as we focus on creating franchises and driving profitability, Zynga has made changes to four of our U.S. offices,” Zynga COO David Ko said in a statement. “We are closing the McKinney, Texas, and downtown Austin offices and relocating those teams nearby to our existing Dallas and North Austin offices. And, we will be consolidating our NYC offices to move staff to our NYC mobile studio.”

Only the Baltimore office will face employee layoffs. Half of the staff were able to be moved to other Zynga offices, while approximately 30 Zynga employees will be laid off.

“While these decisions are always difficult, these steps will affect approximately 1 percent of our workforce and enable us to focus our resources on the most significant growth opportunities,” Ko said.

The moves come on the heels of remarks Ko made during Zynga’s most recent earnings call, where the new COO spoke about focusing the company’s efforts on its best-performing franchises, with an obvious aim in stepping up overall profitability. It’s likely one in a series of moves to trim the excess fat in terms of superfluous real estate.

And though layoffs are always a bummer, these in particular weren’t a surprise. Zynga recently shut down Cityville 2, the game that studio in particular was focused on. Not to mention that chief game designer and Baltimore studio leader Brian Reynolds recently resigned.

Shares of Zynga were trading up 10 percent on the news at $3.51 per share, a bump of about 32 cents.

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