Sorry to go against some of those who've already answered, but this account is fairly superficial. An intern is not going to get the full experience of employees at different levels. Further, Zynga has multiple studios, so I suspect one studio may differ from another. Also the "I spoke with a friend @ Facebook and they work more", one subjective data point.

I don't work at Zynga, I've heard stories like others, but you know what, I wouldn't assume anything about them until (if I did) I interviewed with them and inquired about a position I was interested in. In general, gaming studios work more than comparably sized non-gaming businesses.

This particular article/blog has no more merit than the stories of ZOMG ZYNGA IS EVIL AND WORKS THEIR EMPLOYEES TO THE BONE.

My experience in the tech industry is, an employee will have expectations, a company will have expectations. As the employee, it is your job to look out for yourself and make sure that what you are getting into matches what you want. You can easily get sucked into the day to day and forget or not realize what you are giving up, you need to be aware enough to take stock from time to time and ask "is this working for me?"

Just a minor (well major) nit... Quoting someone who says "my job is my social life" -- if most of those hours are in the office working, you need to get out and live a little. Especially if you are an employee and not a founder.

Thanks for your opinions, and you're right. If you don't mindlessly absorb news articles, then great! You shouldn't absorb this one either.

Unfortunately lots of people do, so I thought it appropriate to address the other side for very assuming people who absorb one-sided information.

It's weird to me that "the other side" that anyone might care about is how employees are treated. Frankly, I don't really give a fuck how a bunch of incredibly smart and talented people in an awesome job market are treated. I figure that's their (pretty easy) problem to solve.

If someone wants to write an article about "the other side" then write something about the users for whom Zynga's products are actually providing value as opposed to serving as artless black-holes of attention and creativity.

I'm guessing you don't believe in games at all...? I think this would be more of a discussion about whether games are a good thing at all, but that would probably be mostly opinions.

FUCK NO! Games are amazing. I think play is one of the most fundamentally beautiful ideas in human society, and an art form really ripe and ready for disruption, innovation, and well... play.

I think games have incredible (and untapped!) value, but I don't think Zynga makes games. I think Zynga exploits game mechanics to make products out of people.

I don't think most people would dispute that games in general are worthwhile, but I think there are also arguments to be made about the quality of what Zynga does.

Obvious example: http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml

This is definitely the "other side". Unfortunately the extremes are what make the news. The posting you ref'd felt pretty shallow. So maybe it is good to ref the "otherside" here, but...ug. That was a painful read. :)

Positive or not, this industry can lead one to feeling like they have to give every waking hour to the company. At the end of the day, though, one really should ask "what am I getting in return?"

Balance is key.

Does not putting in abnormal hours means you don't love what you do?

I find (personally) that I become more creatively and emotionally effective when I've had rest, exercise, proper food and non-work social endeavors. I don't remember the last time I stayed up past 2am for work, or a side project. But I still love what I do, and want to do it well.

An internship experience is totally different from a real job experience. Great intnernship experience is totally about "Hey, I worked at a totally cool project, got to hang out with smart people", A great real job experience needs rewards and recognition, healthy culture, work-life balance apart from the above.

There's no possible way these recent positive-story-about-zynga bloggings are bullshit PR-shill damage control. Zynga wouldn't do that, would they?

Oh, wait, yes they fucking would.

And how could I convince you otherwise? By pointing you to my portfolio site or a linked in account?

Maybe this post is badly timed with all the other negative stories going around, but I thought I'd just address one thing which I believe for sure isn't fairly judged about Zynga.

Which is more likely:

Manipulative scum-company is really actually a nice place to work

or

Manipulative scum-company has gotten really good at putting on makeup to hide it's festering sores.

If you really are interning there, I urge you to leave as soon as possible, and pursue something worthwhile. Persuading entranced people to click on ads - for useless virtual bads or otherwise - is a waste of life and talent.

You only get one allotment of life; choose wisely how you spend it.

This post seems to be fairly focused on the hours worked. Long hours are only one small contributing factor into the entire work environment. A point the author may have unknowingly conceded by his reference to Facebook employees working similar hours without the same reputation.

This is a great post and thanks for sharing it. While I've never worked at Zynga, my friends that work there tell me that the culture is work hard and get rewarded accordingly. A lot of people don't fit into that culture and it's okay. It self selects.

For the people that complained about the culture just for the 'big payday', then you missed the point all together.

Rewards don't justify overwork or poor work conditions.

I think that was the point of his comment. It's not about the payday, or the rewards. If you totally and completely enjoy what you do, then work conditions like these aren't poor. In fact, pretty much every game company, and many tech companies have the same work conditions. I don't understand why Zynga is the only one to get blamed for work conditions.

The quote from the article, “my work life sort of is my personal life.” is the common attitude put forth by the sort of employees that a company like Zynga attracts. Young, without family or interests outside of work.

A company with a focus on long term employees that will stay and focus on the underlying structure that permits the business to exist will be more interested in hiring and retaining employees with interests that encapsulate more than simply staying late into the evening to "crush some code."

Sound piece of advice to those who think grades are the ONLY factor in doing well in life. Passion's more important than that.