John Schappert surprised industry watchers in April last year when he said he would be leaving his COO post at Electronic Arts to join the fast-growing FarmVille developer Zynga. A year and three months later, he's being stripped of his duties overseeing game operations at Zynga, where he's been COO. Citing sources familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported Zynga has reorganized senior executives, following recent quarterly results that sent stock spiraling downward. The shuffle means that Schappert will no longer be in charge of the company's games, with chief mobile officer David Ko and executive VP Steve Chiang taking over the duties. Ko and Chiang were both reporting to Schappert -- now they will report to CEO Mark Pincus. Putting the mobile chief in charge of games is a message from Zynga. Players have been spending less money when playing Zynga's Facebook games, and the company, even with strong titles like Draw Something and Words With Friends on mobile, needs to do a better job to address consumers' migration from social networks to mobile. Last week, the company saw revenues of $332.5 million, an increase of 19 percent year over year. But that was coupled with a loss of nearly $23 million and a reduced outlook, causing investors to bail and Zynga's stock to plummet.
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