SGN Names New President, Plans to Release 9 Games Next Year

SGN hopes to sidestep the problems plaguing Zynga

Social gaming company SGN named head of game development Josh Yguado as its new president and said it plans to up the number of releases in the next year.

Yguado, who will report to CEO Chris DeWolfe, founded SGN originally as a mobile gaming company, but over the last year, it acquired a Facebook game studio called Mindjolt and the PC gaming company Hallpass. By blending all three, he hopes to avoid the woes of social gaming company Zynga.

Also read: Zynga Lays Off 150 in Boston & Austin — and Outsources to India

Zynga has expanded with platform-specific games like Facebook's "FarmVille" and the mobile "Words with Friends." But it has so-far failed to convince investors of its long-term value.

"Our approach is, rather than develop each sort of game for each platform separately, we develop once and distribute across all channels," " Yguado told TheWrap.

The Harvard Business School graduate helped found the Los Angeles-based SGN a year and a half ago.

So far, the company of about 100 employees — divided between studios in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Argentina — has released three cross-platform games, "Panda Jam," "Jewels of the Amazon" and "Bingo Blingo." Each one has versions for Facebook, smartphones, tablets and PC web browsers. 

Stock prices in Zynga have tumbled since its initial public offering last December, and the company laid off 150 staffers on Tuesday. It also threatened to close down additional studios in Japan and the United Kingdom. 

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