Maybe. Then again, if the acquired individuals saw nice retention bonuses and pay outs on their equity that gave them some sort of (even limited) financial freedom, maybe they were the geniuses.

not really. he lost out on severance.

...but would’ve worked at Zynga for more than a year to get three months of severance.

Shrug, it's not like he wouldn't get paid for it.

I have no idea just how miserable it would have been working at Zynga, but working for a year in order to get three month's of severance doesn't sound too awful to me.

I worked at Zynga for a year + some months. It's actually a good place to work. You learn a ton about social / viral games and monetization, make really good contacts, get paid at or above market salary, eat really good food, and get all the other startup perks. And, you're still doing game development so it's not like your skills don't transfer.

I don't regret working there at all. I just wish the stock hadn't of tanked and the game I was working on hadn't of been a failure =P

What successful game did you end up copying?

> You learn a ton about social/ ...

That ...

> viral games

.. sounds ...

> and monetization

.. horrible.

The poor sap is probably stuck with keeping his new job. The horror!

who cares, being ultimately right trumps all. I would hire him over Dan Porter any day.

What developer who opted out of what?