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Aiming for better profits, Zynga cuts even deeper into once-beloved games (interview)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 8 min

David Ko

David Ko, the No. 2 executive at Zynga, might not be really popular right now. Yesterday, during Zynga’s earnings call, he announced that the social-game company had eked out a profit, but it is canceling four existing games. It has also shelved two unannounced titles as part of an effort to cut costs and be more disciplined about its strategy to focus on franchises, networks, and profitability. His decisions are bound to affect employees as well as the fans who have stayed loyal to those games even as they decline in numbers of users.

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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.