Zynga Absorbs Floodgate Team Into Boston Office

Zynga announced that it has acquired the development team at Boston-based casual and mobile game studio Floodgate Entertainment, which it will absorb into its Zynga Boston office. Founded in 2000 by veterans of now-defunct Looking Glass Studios (System Shock, Thief), Floodgate has released mobile titles like Flowerz and Civ IV: War of Two Cities, as well as a few PC games like Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Daycare Nightmare. The Floodgate team will join Zynga Boston, which was created when Zynga purchased Cambridge-based social game developer Conduit Labs (Music Pets, Super Dance) last August. Floodgate head Paul Neurath will serve as creative director at the studio. This acquisition, Zynga's tenth in as many months, follows several weeks after the San Francisco-headquartered firm was reportedly close to completing a $500 million round of financing, pumping its valuation up to as much as $10 billion. The FarmVille and CityVille creator currently has over 1,500 workers spread out across at least 15 development studios around the world, most of which Zynga opened or purchased in the past year.