RockYou, a social network app developer that also has an advertising branch, has had substantial layoffs this week, we’ve just confirmed. The company says that it has “restructured the organization” in the last couple of days, and that going forward it is going to focus exclusively on social games, where it “sees the largest opportunity”.
A company spokesperson declined to comment on how many people were laid off (the best I could get out of them was that it was less than half the company) — we’re working to get a more specific number. RockYou has been very well funded, with over $125 million raised to date. It recently closed a $10 million round in June to boost its presence in Asia.
RockYou will continue to work on its advertising initiatives and will be directing most of its resources at developing social games. It won’t be shutting down its established non-gaming properties, which include Pieces of Flair and SuperWall, but it won’t be supporting them to the same extent that it has been up until this point.
It’s been a bad year for RockYou. Less than twelve months ago, the company had all of its 32 million accounts hacked.
RockYou arch-rival Slide was acquired by Google in August for $228 million.