Pincus Steps Down as CEO of Zynga

It must have been a hugely tough decision to make, and although Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga has often said that if he ever found someone who could replace him then he would step aside, it would have still been a very bitter pill to swallow in doing so. His has replaced himself with Don Mattrick, no stranger to the world of online games, and is still in fact the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, and Pincus said of him that, "Don is unique in the game business, he can execute in multiple domains - hardware, software and network." The fact is the over the last few years Zynga has been going downhill, and a huge period of turmoil saw its shares slump massively, the closure of many offices, including the New York branch and the cut of 18% of its workforce.

On this news shares in Zynga rose a very respectable 11% at over $3.00 but still a long way off their high of over $14 in March 2012 and the price that they were sold, $10.00. Although the actual number of people in the US who play social games on their mobile devices is rising, Zynga has had huge trouble in keeping hold of these players, and it's Mattrick's job to put an end to that...for starters. Mattrick will begin his new challenge shortly sent an email to all staff and it read, "More than 1 billion people have installed a Zynga game across web and mobile and popular franchises like Farmville, Running With Friends and Words With Friends are a daily habit for millions of people. It's a staggering milestone that speaks to the mass market opportunity ahead of all of us." He continued with reasons why he joined Zynga and believes that there mission is just getting started. Many cite that the now 'relaxed' relationship Zynga has with Facebook is partly to blame for their recent troubles, others would say that their attempt to garner a share in the UK real money market has drawn focus away from what they are actually good at...social gaming. No matter what the reason, the have a new man in charge and let's see how things pan out.