It’s been an interesting week – make that an interesting month – for troubled game developer Zynga. The well-known game publisher, which built its large audience of loyal gamers during the early days of Facebook, has dealt with a steadily declining share price and a rapidly declining base of frequent users.
The company, which is known for titles such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars, can now add ‘executive departure’ to its list of recent news headlines. Zynga Inc. announced that several of its executive team had departed the company this Tuesday, amongst them the company’s Chief Operating Officer David Ko.
Zynga recently hired a new Chief Executive Officer, former Microsoft lead executive Don Mattrick, to refocus its core business and return the company to health. One of his first moves – a decision that comes just over a month into his leadership of the company – has been to reorganise its executive management team.
The new CEO has moved company founder Mark Pincus into a different role, with the well-known and somewhat controversial entrepreneur now given the title of Chief Product Officer. Despite his new position with the company, Pincus owns a majority of Zynga’s voting shares and remains an important voice in the company.
Mattrick’s new plan appears to be a success with investors, as Zynga’s share price rose on news of the departures. The company’s new management plan, which will see 13 executives report directly to Mattrick, caused its share price to increase by over two percent in early trading on Wednesday morning.
Zynga’s operations have been up and down since the company went public in late 2011. The online game publisher’s shares were initially available at $10 and were previously priced as high as $14.50. The shares crashed and settled at $2.09 each during trading in 2012.
