It turns out that in addition to Small Giant Games, Zynga had another studio in the capital of Finland. She was involved in the development and operation of the last part of Farmville. Now the studio is being shut down (most of its employees have already been laid off), and its project has been transferred to Bangalore for support.
At least, this is what the insiders from Deconstruction of Fun insist on in their latest newsletter.
The story of Zynga Helsinki is a bit confusing, but no less interesting.
The tie takes us to 2016, when Frank Gibeau, who previously headed EA‘s mobile division, becomes CEO of Zynga. After him, a part of his former team from EA moves to Zynga. Including part of the EA Helsinki core team, which was responsible for Sim City BuildIt. Recall that the earnings of the latter are more than $ 500 million.
This team is tasked with making a third Farmville. It is assumed that no matter how they understand the creation of successful builders. But then something goes wrong. In September 2021 (after two years of softlonch), FarmVille 3 is released and does not become a box office blockbuster (the monthly revenue of the game immediately reached a plateau in the region of $ 2 million, where plus or minus is still).
In 2022, Zynga becomes part of Take-Two. That’s just the latter was clearly in a hurry with the deal. Today, the world economy is going through a recession, and traffic is becoming increasingly difficult to attract due to changes in the privacy of stores. Against the background of all this, Take-Two is running to reduce the “cost”, covering assets that are controversial from its point of view.