Last week, Zynga’s repeated Tower of Terror-style drops in share price culminated in the closure of its Austin branch and the loss of over 100 jobs. Hacking group Anonymous believe this signalled only the start of mass layoffs at Zynga, however. The group has leaked ‘confidential documents’ about Zynga’s plans and now threatens to release entire games ripped from the social giant’s servers if its demands are not met.
The threat was issued by Anonymous alongside what it claims is a transcript of an internal Zynga note – although it includes numerous grammatical errors and in places verges on the nonsensical.
The note suggests that Zynga plans to dismiss its entire US staff and relocate development to Bangalore. Further, Anonymous believe that Zynga plan to take legal action “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,” claimed the group.
And so Anonymous plan to engage in a little corporate blackmail: unless Zynga “cease immediately the plan”, the group will release data keys for games it claims to have taken from Zynga’s servers on November 5th. Never miss an opportunity to cast themselves as revolutionaries, that lot.
Imagine you were Zynga, for a second. Would you call their bluff?
Thanks, Eurogamer.