Except that's not what happened here. Zynga dominates the facebook games market and always has. Everybody else, including any newcomers looking to become "the next Zynga" all fight over the small piece of the pie left by Zynga. I can't remember who here said it, but nobody's going to be a better Zynga than Zynga.
The problem is the market itself was never as lucrative as it was made to seem and it's shrinking fast. I can't say a whole lot about that last part, but let's just say Zynga isn't the only social gaming company laying off staff to refocus on mobile...
Part of the point of the article was that maybe everyone doesn't want to be the next Zynga. If you are a two-man development studio, a tiny piece of the pie goes a lot further than if you're 3000-employee Zynga. And there are a lot of two-to-ten-man studios to take a lot of small pieces of pie...
Zynga does not dominate the Facebook game market any longer. The #1 game is Candy Crush Saga and is from King.com. If you look down the top apps, you see King.com is quite competitive, and a few other people are in there.
And because top apps are listed by MAU, rather than revenue, you miss the mid to hardcore segment that is very profitable. Kixeye and Kabam are in the 9 figures range and growing.
The market is wide open. That's not why Zynga is strugglign though.
The problem is the market itself was never as lucrative as it was made to seem and it's shrinking fast. I can't say a whole lot about that last part, but let's just say Zynga isn't the only social gaming company laying off staff to refocus on mobile...