Harbin not only goes after Zynga for the lawsuit, but trashes the company’s poor performance since its December IPO as well. They've clearly exhausted other options in their employee retention playbook,” a spokesperson from Kixeye said.Ī statement from Kixeye CEO Will Harbin, released to VatorNews today, though, is far more blistering. Unfortunately, this appears to be Zynga's new employee retention strategy: Suing former employees to scare current employees into staying. The 760 files allegedly stolen include internal assessments of Zynga games, future plans for Cityville, monetization plans for Cityville, over 10,000 design documents, information concerning revenue and employee compensation, and 14 months of confidental communications regarding product reviews, business strategies, acquisition targets, market analysis, key hires, sales projections and financial estimates.Įarlier this week, a spokesperson from Kixeye released a statement to VatorNews, in which the company denied having anything to do with the lawsuit, but it still managed to take a shot at Zynga. Zynga says that Patmore stole 760 files by putting them into a Dropbox account, which he then attempted to delete once they were on his personal Cloud storage. Then, last week, Zynga accused Patmore in a legal filing with the Superior Court of the State of California, of breaching his contract, and of stealing company secrets. In August, Cityville general manager Alan Patmore left the company after working there a little over a year to go work for rival gaming company Kixeye, to overseeing all aspects of product strategy and development. Patmore will also be required to contact Dropbox in writing, asking them to preserve his cloud storage account.
The forensic experts will make a list of all of the Zynga data on Patmore’s Kixeye computer, and the data will then be deleted off his computer by the expert. He must also tell the court who, if anyone, he showed the data to. Patmore is mandated to identify all Zynga data in his possession, and, if he doesn’t have it anymore, he must tell the court what happened to it. In the court order, the judge reiterated that “Patmore, and his agents and all persons in active concert and participation with him, are prohibited from destroying, shredding altering, deleting, erasing, or otherwise modifying, or causing or permitting anyone else to destroy, shred, alter, delete or erase, or otherwise modify, any evidence constituting or relating to the Zynga files at issue.” The judge also granted Zynga’s request to have Patmore deposed, and for forensic experts to search his Kixeye computer. Judge Harold Khan ruled in favor of Zynga, continuing the restraining order against former Cityville General Manager Alan Patmore that had been put in place on October 12. The battle between Zynga and former Cityville General Manager Alan Patmore will be going forward, thanks to a ruling by a judge Tuesday. Judge says Zynga can search Alan Patmore's Kixeye computer Kixeye: "Zynga is burning to the ground"