Zynga Expands to Seattle

San Francisco-based Zynga this week posted job openings for Web engineers in Seattle, signifying that the social games juggernaut is expanding to the Northwest, already a hotbed of game design. Though the company has been on an acquisition binge lately—buying Bonfire Studios in Dallas, Challenge Games in Austin, Conduit Labs in Cambridge, MA, Dextrose in Frankfurt, Germany, Unoh in Tokyo, XPD in Beijing—it has not had a presence in the Seattle area, home to Big Fish Games, Bungie, Nintendo of America, PopCap, Sony Online Entertainment, Valve Software, and many other game makers. VentureBeat reports that Zynga has confirmed that it plans to open a Seattle office.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/