New departure from Zynga: Omgpop’s chief revenue officer (exclusive)

wilson kriegel

Joining the exodus of executives who have left Zynga recently, Wilson Kriegel, the former chief revenue officer of Omgpop, has left the company, GamesBeat has learned.

Kriegel was part of the company that Zynga bought earlier this year for at least $180 million, after Omgpop’s Draw Something game scored big with more than 35 million users. (The game now has more than 90 million installs.) At Zynga, Kriegel was in charge of making Draw Something into a “global juggernaut.” He is otherwise focused on the driving of ad revenues, distribution of mobile games, and monetization partnerships at Zynga Mobile.

Kriegel joins a large contingent of Zynga executives who have left the company in the wake of a weak earnings report. Among those who have left are chief operating officer John Schappert, chief marketing officer John Karp, chief creative officer Mike Verdu, infrastructure chief technology officer Allan Leinwand, and general managers Eric Bethke, Jeremy Stauser, Ya-Bing Chu, and Alan Patmore.

New York-based Omgpop was founded six years ago and initially focused on web-based gaming. The company’s focus later shifted to Facebook games and is now on mobile games. Zynga hasn’t commented yet.

[Image credit: Telecoms.com]

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.