Online gaming company Zynga is laying off at least 30 of its over 400 employees in India as part of a global restructuring. Globally, Zynga , creator of the once wildly popular FarmVille and City-Ville games, is laying off 520 employees, about 18% of its 3,000-strong workforce.

Zynga had not responded to a mail sent by TOI at the time of going to print, but company founder Mark Pincus's letter to employees said the layoff impact would be felt across every group in the company. The word in Zynga India is that at least 6% of the employees here would be impacted. Zynga's Bangalore centre, started in 2010, has rapidly expanded to become the company's second largest operation in the world, after its San Francisco centre. It started as a centre doing core R&D for the company. A year later started a studio that now manages multiple games, developing new content and creating new features for them.

On his first visit to India in April this year, Pincus had said India had been "a terrific investment and experience for us" . That experience and the lower costs may be the reason why the layoffs in India are limited, compared to the global cuts.

Source : TOI