I've decided it's time to leave zynga and venture off on my own again. It's been 6 and a half years since we… http://t.co/RFIGF1AIA5
— Justin Waldron (@jtwald) October 17, 2013
Zynga co-founder Justin Waldron has announced online that he is leaving the company after six and a half years. Justin was one of the few responsible for having brought Zynga to its greatest heights, but he leaves the company at a point where it is still recovering from a severe down period.
Justin got his start from Zynga’s originators Mark Pincus and Eric Shiermeyer, making an early social game involving poker. As is the case with many a game developer, what may have started as a brief dalliance grew into more and more games until Justin up and dropped out of school to embrace game development full time.
Justin is grateful for his tenure in Zynga, and having worked with everyone in it. All he says of his reasons in leaving the company is that it’s time for him to venture on his own again.
Not everyone who left Zynga has such kind words for the company. Just last June, the company experienced its most severe set of layoffs after two financially challenging years. They let go of 520 employees, including many employees of OMGPOP, which they just recently acquired at the time.
Justin’s exit is not entirely a negative for the company, however, and may merely be symptomatic of the overhaul still ongoing within Zynga. Under former Xbox head Don Mattrick, the company is being brought into a new direction, one where they hope they can return to profitability, if not all the way back to their former heights.