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Anonymous takes aim at Zynga

The hacker group says layoffs at Zynga will lead to the "end of the US game market as we know it" as jobs get shipped overseas, and it vows to take action.

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Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
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2 min read

The hacktivist group Anonymous apparently is perturbed by the financial situation at Zynga.

A posting on the AnonNews site this morning posits that layoffs at Zynga will help to bring about the "end of the US game market as we know it" as jobs get shipped overseas, a plan that the AnonNews report says was discovered in confidential files leaked from the games maker.

During the last few days anonymous has been targeting Zynga for the outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers.

We have come to believe that this actions of Zynga will result in massive layoff of a thousand people and legal actions against everyone that speaks to the public about this plan.

It will also come to end of the US game market as we know it as all this jobs will be replaced in other more convenient financial countries.

With a billion dollars cash sitting in a bank we do believe that such actions are an insult to the population and the behaviour of corporations like Zynga must change.

Beyond merely publicizing the alleged plan, Anonymous says it stands ready to retaliate -- it is threatening to "release also all the games we've taken from their servers for free," if Zynga doesn't call off the offshoring effort. The group did not specify what games it has taken but set a deadline of November 5 -- also known as Guy Fawkes Day, named for the English historical figure from which Anonymous derives inspiration.

Zynga this week said that it is planning to lay off about 140 employees, or approximately 5 percent of its worldwide workforce. It is also closing its Boston office and expects to shutter its U.K. and Japan studios as well. That word came just a day before the FarmVille maker reported that it lost $52.7 million in the third quarter. The company also said it has a cash stockpile of about $1.6 billion.

Financial troubles aside, Zynga has 5 of the 10 most popular games on Facebook, the massive social network that helped propel it into widespread popularity.

(Via Business Insider)