Last year's surprise hit Among Us inspired a number of clones in the app stores, followed more recently by a very similar game mode called "Impostors" in Fortnite. The latest to get in on the genre is Snapchat with the help of Zynga, the company that once dominated the world of mobile games with titles like FarmVille.
Clocking in at a hair over 50 minutes long, Nintendo's latest Direct was no brief affair. There was a lot covered during the presentation, and there's a good reason for that, as this was the first traditional Direct Nintendo has hosted in quite some time. In case you missed it, we'll be briefly recapping all of the announcements here, along with embedding the VOD of Direct so you can watch it from start to finish if you wish.
Back when Facebook was really getting going, it seemed that the only thing anyone could talk about was FarmVille. Seemingly everyone on the platform was playing that game, and those who were using Facebook when FarmVille reached peak popularity can tell you stories of notification inboxes full of FarmVille invites - even if they didn't play the game themselves. We're approaching the end of an era for the original FarmVille, as Zynga has announced that it's shutting down at the end of the year.
Almost a month ago to the day, Snapchat rolled out Snap Games. The feature is pretty self-explanatory from the name alone, as it focuses on small games that can be played with friends from within the Snapchat app. At the time of its reveal, Snapchat announced the first six titles slated for Snap Games, and today one of those titles, Zynga's Tiny Royale, is going live.
Zynga, for a brief while, was chief among game creators in the mobile gaming world, laying claim to some of Facebook's then-famous games. Its reign started slipping a couple of years ago, however, as mobile gaming trends shifted, and though it has tried different things to reverse that trend, the company has largely continued in its downwards spiral. All the while, competitors have risen to fill its void, most notable among them being King Digital, the company behind Candy Crush.
Zynga's persistent troubles have continued to follow the company, but despite them it is still trying to keep itself afloat. As part of this, Zynga has announced that it'll be launching a mobile game called NFL Showdown under a licensing deal with the league.
Zynga may best be known for its Facebook games, but the company is bringing a new mobile FarmVille to iPhone, iPad and Android in an attempt to turn around its underwhelmed players. FarmVille 2: Country Escape can be played in both single-player and multi-player modes, with gameplay on the phone or tablet synchronized with what's happening online on Facebook.
In a rather ironic turn of events, game maker Zynga acquired gaming company NaturalMotion for a whooping amount of $527 million. And then on the same day, it also let go 314 employees, around 15 percent of its entire roster.
Facebook has been actively researching the feasibility, effectiveness, and profitability of tracking users' cursors and screen positions, reports the Wall Street Journal. The data would give the social media giant the ability to analyze the ways in which users interact with Facebook content and advertising. This would in turn let it change the site and its advertising methods according to where users hover their mice and scroll their device displays.
Alan Patmore found himself hit with a lawsuit from his former employer Zynga late last year after he left the ailing company for another called Kixeye. According to Zynga, Patmore had pilfered 763 files when he left the company, among them being confidential designs, while also claiming that Kixeye was aware of this theft and accessed the data. Nearly a year later, the matter has been put to rest.
Earlier this summer, Zynga's previous CEO stepped down to make way for former Microsoft executive Don Mattrick, who has the substantial task of pulling the company from its dregs. As part of that task, Mattrick has reportedly made some restructuring changes and as a result three top executives will be resigning and leaving the company.
Modern times have not been kind to Zynga, the maker of online video games that once enjoyed wealth and prosperity as the top dog in the world of Facebook-centric games. Now others have arisen to fill the company's shoes (King of Candy Crush fame being one of them), and Zynga has been steadily suffering since. Gamers are losing interest in once-staples like Mafia Wars, FarmVille, and more, and once again the company has announced a closure.