Zynga closes Dallas studios (Formerly Bonfire Studios and NewToy)
Yesterday Zynga announced the shocking news that it was closing its Zynga Dallas and Zynga With Friends studios. Prior to Zynga’s acquisition of these teams they were known as Bonfire Studios and NewToy respectively. It was not long ago back in February 2013 that Zynga’s Chief Operating Officer, David Ko announced that it was merging all of its Texas operations under a single office as part of cost cutting moves for the struggling company. Now it seems those cost cutting measures have gone even deeper resulting in the layoff of all staff from the studios formed by Ex Ensemble Studios members. Read more
Age & Orcs Must Die updates and some information about Zynga acquisitions
Ok, so its been a while since the last update! Apologies for that! So what’s been happening lately? First off, the beta testing for Age of Empires Online has come to end. Microsoft and Gas Powered are now wrapping up the game with final touches before launching this August 16th. It wont be long now until eager Age fans get to play the next great game in the Age series which has sold over 20 million copies under Ensemble Studios. Luckily the bulk of the work on Age of Empires Online has come from prestigious ex Ensemblers at Robot Entertainment. Read more
Words with Friends – Geek Sugar’s download of the day
![wwf_logo[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/wwf_logo2.jpg "wwf_logo[2]"){kind=logo}
NewToy’s Words with Friends iPhone app has exploded since its launch in August 2009. Today the app is featured as GeekSugar.com’s download of the day.
Remember when Plants vs. Zombies was taking over my life? It’s officially been ousted as my number one time-suck, replaced by Words With Friends,
If you have an iPhone and havnt played Words with Friends, what are you waiting for? Download the free edition from the iTunes store today, just search for Words with Friends!
Dave Pottingers Lego mission is complete + NewToy launch new iPhone game “Words with Friends”
Kicking off today’s ex Ensemble Studios members updates is Dave Pottinger who has updated his blog over on the Robot Entertainment with the final installment of the Lego Robot Logo design. With a bunch of new pictures and text discussing how the board came to be mounted proudly on the wall of Robot Entertainment can be found on the website.
![BLOG4_05_Foreman_Crow[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/BLOG4_05_Foreman_Crow2.JPG "BLOG4_05_Foreman_Crow[2]")
Carrying the Logo
In case you were wondering from the last blog what the mini lego adventures were on each letter of the logo I can reveal from the blog that the list is as follows:
• Star Wars for the ‘r’
• Indy for the first ‘o’
• Medieval for the ‘b’ (hey, we did do Age2 after all!)
• Pirates for the second ‘o’
• Batman for the ‘t’
And here’s what they look like:
![BLOG4_08_Success[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/BLOG4_08_Success1-300x225.jpg "BLOG4_08_Success[1]")
Mission Complete!
But of course all this wouldnt of been possible with out Mr “Lead Designer” Dave Pottinger and his family!
![BLOG4_15_Safe_from_the_Bad_Guys[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/BLOG4_15_Safe_from_the_Bad_Guys1.JPG "BLOG4_15_Safe_from_the_Bad_Guys[1]")
Standing proud with the family… away from the Bad Guys!
But thats not all!
Its been a little while but it looks like NewToy one of the iPhone development companies that formed out of Ensemble has released thier new game titled “Words with Friends” the game follows in the “With friends” series with NewToy’s last game, “Chess with friends” proving to be a real hit on the Apple App Store. NewToy is lead by the Bettner Brothers of Ensemble Studios. You can download thier latest game right now from the App Store!
![wwfboard[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/wwfboard1.png "wwfboard[1]")
Be sure to read all about it on the New Toy website!
