Zynga COO: We could work from home forever if needed
Matt Bromberg says the social gaming company hasn't skipped a beat because of social distancing
While many game companies are still adjusting to working from home in a pandemic and unsure about the impact it will have on software development, Zynga has apparently already fully adapted to remote work.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz today, Zynga COO Matt Bromberg said the shift to working from home hasn't budged the company's development schedules.
"We've been really proud of our teams in terms of their ability to transition to work-from-home," Bromberg said. "To have nearly 2,000 people around the world almost overnight all leave the office, it's been pretty extraordinary. We have not seen any meaningful negative impact from that transition so far, so we don't expect it to have a material negative impact at all. We're still making new content, we're still building our new games. Everything seems to be, broadly speaking, on track."
Bromberg acknowledged the good fortune of creating and selling an exclusively digital product in the current environment, and said the company was already well-positioned for such a circumstance given how many of its developers work with teams on multiple continents already.
"If we had to, we could do this forever," Bromberg said. "I'm sure over time you would have to grapple with long-term impacts, but we're really confident that as long as we have to do this, we're really well-situated to do it."
He added, "It's gratifying for us in this environment where there's so much pain and difficulty that folks are turning to games in general, and our games in specific, as a way of connecting. That desire and impulse is increasing as a consequence of this tragedy, and it feels good to feel like you're contributing something in what is otherwise a relatively dark moment in time."
As mentioned in its first quarter earnings report yesterday, Zynga has seen a surge in engagement since March. While Bromberg said the company doesn't expect to see the pandemic's full impact until its second quarter results, it is definitely seeing the engagement boost in every user segment.
"We're seeing re-engagement of lapsed users increase, and we're also seeing existing players playing more, and an increase in new players as well. The environment has enabled us to acquire and invest in acquiring new users as well. We're seeing upticks in all flavors of engagement among users."