Andy Kleinman, a former general manager of Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) decided to start his studio called MobLabs, which will focus on mobile products, according to report from TechCrunch.
Last year, Kleinman left Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) to join Scopely, a mobile gaming platform and publishing network as chief business officer. After more than a year, he decided to leave the company to pursue a different path. According to him, “What I wanted to do was get out of games. It’s been too many years of games.”
Kim-Mai Cutler of TechCrunch finds Kleinman’s reason for leaving Scopely amusing because he said the statement when he left Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA). Back then, he said, “At first after Zynga, I had wanted to take a break from gaming.”
Kleinman aims to leverage knowledge from games
According to Kleinman, MobLabs has three other co-founders, and they are still in the process of finalizing their documents. His team is composed of 14 individuals who have experience working in various companies including Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA), Scopely, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS).
He said MobLabs is intended to build and lunch products for a massive audience. “I was thinking about how to leverage all the stuff I learned from games. I thought; why don’t we put a team together with competencies around these areas in mobile,” said Kleinman.
Kleiman co-founded Vostu, a social gaming company based in Latin America. After that, he joined Three Melons, a studio bought by Playdom. The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) acquired Playdom for $763 million in 2010.
Kleinman serves as an adviser for several startups based in Latin America and Los Angeles including Radical Studios, Urbita, Ideame, Tactivos, Fanwards, among others. He is also an active investor on such startups.
New Zynga Poker launched
Separately, early this month, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) announced that the new Zynga Poker is available on mobile. Users worldwide can download the game via App Store and Google Play.
According to the online social gaming company, Zynga Poker has been played by 350 million users to date. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) redesigned the game to offer players with a modern look, feel, authentic and personalized gameplay.
