I hope my childhood dog went to THAT farm.

I was going to write a title about John Schappert, ex-Zynga Chief of Operations having to go away to the FarmVille, where he’d have all the room to run around and enjoy himself, but I didn’t want anybody to get the impression that Zynga took him out back and fed him the business end of a shotgun; plus, the title was turning out to be way too long.

It is true that he’s resigned, though. It doesn’t come as a particularly shocking development considering Zynga’s recent slew of troubles lately, what with Electronic Arts pulling the ripcord on a lawsuit, accusations of insider trading, and some internal shuffling involving Mr. Schappert specifically. Last month, Schappert was stripped of his role of overseeing game development when growth for the social games giant had slowed. While it’s possible that any of these three things may have contributed to Schappert’s resignation, Zynga insists that his parting is amicable, and they wish him the best.

So things continue to decline for Zynga, but it may still be far from the end for the kings of Facebook. On the other hand, some news might drop tomorrow that somebody at Zynga was responsible for the 1906 great earthquake in San Francisco and it could be all over for them.

Sources: Game Informer (Schappert’s Resignation), Bloomberg Business Week (Schappert’s Loss of Oversight)

Johnny Maloney

Having been a gamer since 1986 when his father brought home an IBM PCjr with King's Quest and Crossfire included, it seemed destined that PC gaming and Johnny Maloney's life would run parallel forever. Despite his occasional affairs with movies, books, music and single malt scotch, he's never once left the side of his PC. In fact, on a full moon on a friday the thirteenth, if you sit in his old chairs... chills will run up your spine if you say "you fight like a dairy farmer," and you can sometimes hear ghostly whispers in the night respond "how appropriate, you fight like a cow…" -- Attempting to contact Johnny at Johnny@Blisteredthumbs.net may be successful.

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