The hackers group associated with ‘Anonymous’ has threatened Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) for “the outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers”. The group has threatened to take down Facebook and release Zynga games for free online on November 5, if the latter goes ahead with its plans to lay off 5 percent of its workforce.
The online Gaming Company recently announced plans of shutting down its offices in Boston and Austin and also revealed plans to lay off many others, as a cost-cutting strategy that involves outsourcing work to India. However, the hacker group claims that the company has $1.6 billion (£1 billion) cash in reserve. The hackers claim to have documents confirming the reserve and the company’s plans to acquire the games Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Shove Prod, and Music Invaders for $20 million (£12m).
Apart from the layoff, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) also hinted that it might close its British and Japanese offices, and may transfer maintenance of The Ville to its India base, which will help it save $15 million and $20 million (£9 million and £12 million) respectively.
“During the last few days, Anonymous has been targeting Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) for the outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers,” the hacking group announced in a YouTube video, which was almost immediately taken down because of the site’s policy on the “depiction of harmful activities”.
“We have come to believe that this action of Zynga will result in massive layoff of a thousand people and legal actions against everyone that speaks to the public about this plan,” the statement continued. “It will also come to an end of the US game market as we know it, as all this jobs will be replaced in other more convenient financial countries. With a billion dollars cash sitting in a bank, we do believe that such actions are an insult to the population and the behavior of corporations like Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) must change.”
The alleged documents are written in the same unmistakable broken English the group is known for:
“Following the preliminary announced of this week the final strategy for the next two quarters has been successfully set to delivery by November 23 an additional but of 800 jobs with further raising of new capital from the market to support businesses. We’ve identified our global gambling strategy with bwin.party and as we speak discussions are progressing with a partner to cover the US market. Work is focused and on-going to completely outsource our development teams in our offices in Bangalore, India to hedge our position in the long term”.
The company’s restructuring strategy, might sound reasonable, considering a 75 percent drop in its share price over the past year. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has also admitted a $1.6 billion (£1 billion) in cash and equivalents. The group has previously threatened other companies, including Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) but have not been fairly successful so far.
