
Zynga Buys NaturalMotion For $527M - antr
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/30/zynga-naturalmotion/
======
cletus
They buried the lead... Zynga _has_ $527M??

Much like Sauron's tower in Mordor that collapsed once the foe was vanquished,
you kinda expected Zynga to implode once Pincus was ousted.

~~~
jessedhillon
I came here expecting to see something like this at the top position. Apart
from the standard rant about how completely unconstructive criticism -- in
fact just outright insulting whole people and companies from the safety of
anonymity -- seems to rule around here, there are a couple of other things I'd
like to say.

HN would greatly benefit from a regional filter -- as in, a filter of which
comments I read, not who can post them. WTF do I care what some guy in
Australia thinks of a very prominent Bay Area employer? He doesn't have
friends and neighbors who work there, we do. Geographic community still means
something, and much of the news on HN happens in _our_ locale.

(Honestly, I have a difficult time taking any developer who doesn't live here
seriously, but that's a different discussion.)

Second, up/down voting is conflated with "makes me feel good/not good" \-- a
better system would allow feedback to be more nuanced: agree/disagree,
insightful, well-researched, funny etc. So we could have filters on
discussions for what's actually insightful, not just what gives people the
fuzzy comfort of knowing their preconceptions can remain safe and unchallenged
for one more day, because the world has made low someone who has actual
accomplishments (and mistakes)

~~~
mildtrepidation
_(Honestly, I have a difficult time taking any developer who doesn 't live
here seriously, but that's a different discussion.)_

That's lovely. People outside your precious bay area don't have any sort of
interesting insight (It's a Jeep thing; you wouldn't understand)? Your whole
rant is pretty hilarious in this context.

 _...in fact just outright insulting whole people and companies..._

Yes, by all means. Attack the person you're replying to right before you
dismiss all developers outside of your little geographical echo chamber as
inferior.

Finally, I'd like to apologize on behalf of all the stupid foreigners (read:
non-Bay-Area-ites) who are offending you so badly with our deplorable misuse
of the voting system. You're right; we're simply afraid that you're cutting
down our sad little misconceptions about the big, scary world (which, of
course, comprises solely the place where you live, as nothing else really
matters).

I'm not sure if you understand it, but your attitude is a big part of the
reason some of us would never, ever move there. I'm sure you find this just
peachy, which would also be your own failure.

~~~
jessedhillon
A) parentheticals are aside comments

B) I'm not saying that _all_ outside programmers are inferior. I'm saying
that, given a uniformly random sample of Bay Area vs. outside programmer, I
would expect the Bay Area programmer to be "better" for some set of objective
measures.

If you don't think that, then you also have to disagree with basic market
dynamics. Good programmers can earn more money here, and expose themselves to
significant upside opportunities -- both social and financial -- which simply
cannot be offered in the same quantity elsewhere. So if you show me a
programmer who doesn't live in a place where they are exposed to those
opportunities, I have to conclude one of only a few options:

1) not a good enough programmer to work at a company where they would be
exposed to those opportunities

2) too risk-adverse or pessimistic to believe that they could leverage those
opportunities, such that the cost of living here would be outweighed by the
potential benefits -- which, if that is what this person believes about
themselves, then perhaps #1 also applies

3) extreme aversion to city or suburban living? Or severe miscalculation of
the cost-benefit of living here.

Certainly there are some cases where people who don't live here -- the center
of the universe as far as technology careers are concerned -- are actually
very highly skilled _and_ leveraging those skills in their own communities.
John Carmack doesn't live here, nor does Matz.

But I think you have to admit that those are exceptional cases. The average
case is that you have an average programmer -- how else do you interpret the
decision not to live in a place which affords objectively superior upside
scenarios?

 _I 'm not sure if you understand it, but your attitude is a big part of the
reason some of us would never, ever move there. I'm sure you find this just
peachy, which would also be your own failure._

Yeah I get it and I'm sorry for offending you. But I think there are certainly
some realities at play, and one of them is that not all places attract talent
equally. Nobody bats an eye if I said "community theater in Peoria does not
attract the best acting talent," somehow that's an obvious statement -- of
course if one was truly talented they'd have found a more rewarding stage.

Why is the same principle upsetting when applied to your own profession?
Talented developers will find their way to the place which best rewards them.
The biggest rewards tend to be available in the SF Bay Area. Ergo, to the
extent that talent and compensation, opportunity etc are correlated -- the
better talent is found here.

 _Finally, I 'd like to apologize on behalf of all the stupid foreigners..._

This is an unnecessary reaction. I think you must know what I'm saying here is
that the voting seems to have a tendency to indicate popular sentiment, and
not thoughtfulness, or insight. Consequently, it tends to punish provocative
or controversial statements.

~~~
JabavuAdams
You forgot (4) -- doesn't like the idea of living in the U.S.

Having a great job in a great city with warm weather is nice and all, but
that's a fragile little bubble. To my sensibilities, the U.S. society,
government, media, and military is a crazy disaster.

~~~
bmelton
He forgot a million other options too. At one point, I wasn't a Silicon Valley
worker because I preferred to live near family.

At present, I don't even know if I should be personally offended or not -- I
technically _work_ in Silicon Valley, but I _live_ on the other coast, where
the cost of living is dramatically lower.

That isn't to say his remarks weren't offensive either way, because basing a
programmer's quality on something as arbitrary as where someone happens to
live seems pretty naive.

~~~
jessedhillon
I offer you the opportunity to open your company's office in whichever city
you prefer -- I'll bankroll the first three years of rent. Work on the
hardest, most challenging thing you think you can deliver, which also can
actually deliver real value to your customer -- i.e., solve a difficult and
useful problem. I'm also paying for the first few years' salaries of your
early employees.

Where would you open your office and why? Do you think the location of your
family would be an important factor in determining the likelihood of success?
Sure, _you_ might be happier there -- are you going to be able to fill the 20
most important roles in your with high quality people?

There are probably a small few fields where it makes sense to not be over
here. The rest, you're probably going to have a difficult time rationalizing
not picking SF/SV.

 _He forgot a million other options too_

I forgot maybe two important, distinct reasons which don't fold into the ones
mentioned. Valuing family time higher than financial opportunities being one
of them.

~~~
JabavuAdams
From now on, any business that I create will be seeded with remote talent.
Even if talent is local, the business processes will be optimized to allow
seamless remote work. The benefits are just too great.

See 37 Signals and Art & Logic.

I'll grant that SV probably has the most favourable funding environment.

Case in point: recently I've been looking at art talent, and the difference in
quality between paying market rates for Disney-quality talent vs. hitting up
my professional network and friends is just astounding.

------
DigitalSea
This is impressive. I think the perception is Zynga is this poor little
company that is on its last legs when in reality they are still making money
and fresh off the press of the IPO they've still got a bit of money to play
with and this is a smart play if I do say so myself.

It'll be interesting to see if NaturalMotion is kept as a separate entity to
that of Zynga or it is merged with the current company. The 15% Zynga staff
cull that just happened I guess is a sign that they're going to be using their
new-found employee purchases over at NaturalMotion in place of the 15% they
just laid off.

Whether or not this purchase saves Zynga remains to be seen. CSR Racing is a
fantastic game, really fantastic and well played. I've been playing it for a
while now on the train to work, the mechanics and graphics are stellar for a
mobile game.

~~~
anxman
I agree. The NaturalMotion portfolio has lots of really great IP in it. Clumsy
Ninja is such a charming character and CSR performs well critically and
financially.

In my opinion, take a page from the Arthur Anderson / Phillip Morris playbook
and rename the entire company. It will make recruiting easier for them and
probably please investors by shedding some of Zynga's negative brand halo.

------
drawkbox
NaturalMotion technology is excellent and this is a smart buy. Can't believe
they sold. Quality products, above the bar tech, best physics on mobile
probably. Check out Backbreaker and Clumsy Ninja.

------
samstave
I was told from an employee that they were laying off a bunch of people
today....

Did this not happen? Or it is overshadowed by the mass spend on this
acquisition?

~~~
knappe
Third paragraph of the article, last sentence.

(There is also sad news today, with layoffs for 15 percent of the company’s
workforce.)

~~~
officemonkey
Pump and dump: Buy up a new hit, throw out the old talent.

------
kenshiro_o
Well look what happened to OMGPop when Zynga bought them
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMGPop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMGPop)).
Not convinced at all.

------
jason_slack
Wow, I didn't even realize they had 527M to spend on anything, yet they are
closing studios, canceling games, laying off good people...

~~~
adventured
They're trying to stop the bleed on their cash, recognizing they're going to
have to essentially build an entirely new company (and likely understanding
the time and expense involved).

~~~
jason_slack
But can't they re-purpose the existing studios, employees and have it cost way
less than $527 million? I mean is $527 million worth saving the time of re-
purposing the studios and employees? I just dont know. I guess to them it
is...

------
teej
Not surprising that they put themselves up for sale - Clumsy Ninja never hit
top 10 grossing. That was their ticket to the Billionaires Club and they
missed the mark.

Still a great outcome for the NaturalMotion guys. Welcome to the Borg.

~~~
kunaalarya
Clumsy Ninja was never meant to make a ton of money. It was to show off their
tech - they also sell highly valuable middleware for games.

------
ergoproxy
Did Zynga lay off 15% of its workforce to recoup the $527M investment in
NaturalMotion? See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153709)

That article says they'll take a $17M charge this year on the lay off and then
save about $33M/year. Discounted at 6% per annum that works out to $533M. See
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-17+%2B+Sum%5B33%2F1.06...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-17+%2B+Sum%5B33%2F1.06%5En%2C%7Bn%2C1%2Cinf%7D%5D)

This article says Zynga has "about $1.2 billion in cash and marketable
securities on hand." But a dailyfinance article suggests companies aren't
really as cash rich as they seem; their money is locked up in offshore tax
havens; they can't repatriate it without paying tax on it:
[http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/25/why-are-rich-
companie...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/25/why-are-rich-companies-
laying-off-poor-workers/)

------
devindotcom
This strikes me as track behavior. They got a big winner by chance, and are
back at the betting window putting the money into the next favored horse,
hoping to come out ahead again. They'll do this until they lose big.
Seriously, though, half a billion dollars?

------
kayoone
I know Torsten from a european startup accelerator where he was a mentor for
gaming...super smart guy, deeply understands mobile gaming, a great talker and
a hacker at heart. Congrats :)

------
Karunamon
Zynga's still around? I thought that particular titanic-of-the-internet had
sunk already.

------
elwell
I feel like NaturalMotion has been around for a long time. I remember playing
with some of their ragdoll physics simluations at least 7 years ago.

~~~
alexmr
They've been around for a while. Even before getting into mobile they did high
end 3D platform stuff for console games like grand theft auto.

~~~
madaxe_again
They have indeed - long enough that their angel round was almost derailed by
9/11.

------
NDizzle
Why would they spend half a billion dollars on a studio that only has one hit
game?

~~~
Colliers
Their middleware is very valuable. They have probably the best behavioral
procedural animation system that is most notably used by Rockstar Games in
GTAIV&V, Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption.

~~~
teamonkey
It doesn't really fit with Zynga's portfolio though, does it?

~~~
vecter
That's the point, isn't it? Zynga wants to expand its mobile skillset.

------
calcsam
Why is this on HN but not Zynga laying off 300 people?

~~~
darkstar999
It is. In fact, it ranks higher than this post right now.

~~~
calcsam
Good, when I posted it wasn't.

