Last year Zynga spent $180 million on buying OMGPOP.com and all its games to further increase their reach in the seemingly infinite world of social games. Now, 17 months down the line, they have decided to shut down the website and have laid off its employees.
After a massive dip in the number of users on their social games Zynga has been in turmoil for a while and have been downsizing under the pretext of ‘reorganising their structure’. It’s no mystery, No players = No Money. Anything that isn’t living up to Zynga’s insanely unrealistic expectations had to go. Zynga’s clear up comes shortly after they appointed Don Mattrik as the CEO.
Zynga’s decision to completely trash OMGPOP comes as a bit of a surprise in light of the fact that some of the members of the former OMGPOP team had actually attempted to buy back the Website and any IP Zynga would be willing to part with. However according to TechCrunch, Zynga — not wanting to go through more legal hassle — just decided do away with the entire division. They will however continue supporting the popular Draw Something titles and are offering affected gamers credits and in game benefits on their dying social titles.
OMGPOP.com will be taken offline on September 30, however users will still be able to some of the popular titles, including the original game Draw My Thing.