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The founder of Draw Something developer OMGPOP Dan Porter has lost his job at Zynga just a year after the social gaming company’s $210m acquisition of the studio.
No reasons were given as to why Porter, who served as the GM of Zynga New York following the purchase, has left the firm.
The OMGPOP founder has been replaced by Zynga VP of mobile games Sean Kelly.
“Developing and launching games is a team effort, and we’re proud of the great work the Zynga New York team has done with Draw Something 2,” said Zynga COO David Ko in a statement to VentureBeat.
“Our follow up to the original hit is even more social and engaging, and we’re excited to get it into the hands of our players globally. We thank Dan Porter for his efforts in making the Draw Something franchise a success and wish him well in his future endeavours.
“We’re proud to see talent like Sean Kelly take a bigger leadership role as the Head of our New York studio and lead the team to the global launch of Draw Something 2.”
Once described as a “cultural hit”, Draw Something took the world by storm last year, at one point generating $100,000 a day for its creators, with the number of downloads surpassing 50 million.
The craze sparked Zynga into action to acquire the studio for around $210 million as it looked to take advantage of the title’s popularity and its engaged userbase. Two months after the purchase however, Draw Something’s popularity went into steep decline, losing five million users in a single month.
After a dramatic fall in the number of users, Zynga is currently readying Draw Something 2 for release in the hopes of reviving the IP, although it has yet to announce an official launch date.
