Mark Skaggs, showing off The Ville.
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An era closes at Zynga as FarmVille co-creator Mark Skaggs resigns

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Mark Skaggs, a seasoned game designer that created hits such as FarmVille and Empires & Allies, has decided to leave Zynga after nearly seven years, GamesBeat has learned.

Laura Revenko, chief people officer at Zynga.
Laura Revenko, chief people officer at Zynga.

Skaggs’ games have seen play from hundreds of millions of gamers during his time at Zynga since 2008. But after spending a lot of his time commuting from Texas to California, he is stepping down. The company described the departure as amicable.

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Written by

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.