Zynga this week shuffled the senior management deck as chief financial officer David Wehner left to take an executive post at Facebook. Mark Pincus has apparently restructured the management team in a way that centralizes command structure and fills the gigantic gaps left by recent departures from the company in the last few months.

Magazine publisher Ziff Davis has been purchased by business cloud services company j2 Global, the company announced yesterday. According to the announcement, j2 Global paid $167 million in cash for the company, with an expectation that the transaction will contribute $60 million to its 2013 revenue.

Publisher Future has told C&VG today that Xbox World and PSM3 will release their final issues next month as the company deepens its investment and focus into digital publications and properties. Future also said that it hopes to redeploy affected employees in different areas of its business. Future has been reorganizing its existing publications, cutting staff and discontinuing many of its more traditional print publications this year.

Another day, another milestone met for Mojang's ultra popular sandbox building game, Minecraft. It has managed to surpass the 8 million sales mark on the PC platform, according to a tweet from Mojang co-founder and Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson.

"The PC version of Minecraft just passed 8 million sales," said series Persson via Twitter.

"My face is making grinning sounds, so I assume it's grinning," he added.

The former head of Square has some harsh words for Square Enix after the company posted a quarter of losses, saying publicly that the company seemed to have "no vision for the future." Square Enix recently posted losses of nearly 5.5 billion yen, which in turn sent its stock in a downward dive, making its market cap worth around 124 billion yen.

Suzuki pointed out on Twitter that when Square merged with Enix in 2003, the market cap was 150 billion yen.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says that Electronic Arts and Activision's mismanagement of big first-person shooter titles could end up contributing to another month of "terrible" software sales for the game industry in October. He is referring to Medal of Honor: Warfighter, a game that was supposed to be a major release for EA in October and Activision's 007 Legends, which fared worse than Medal of Honor.

Zynga will shut down two of its games in early December, with plans to close 11 additional titles later on down the road. This news follows word that the company would close its Boston offices and reduce five percent of its workforce from offices in Austin, the UK, and Japan.

Take-Two Interactive today released its earnings report for the three months ended September 30, posting booming revenues for the quarter, but warning that it would fall drastically short of its full year projections. It posted net revenues of $273.1 million, up from $107 million from the same period a year ago. During that same period a year ago Civilization V: Game of the Year Edition helped drive the company's revenues.

Today publisher Take-Two announced that it would delay releasing its second quarter earnings report for the fiscal year 2013 and conference call due to the "catastrophic weather conditions in the regions of its corporate headquarters." New York City is currently suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which caused widespread flooding, power outages, and a closure of most means of transportation in and out of town.

Samarion S.E., an investor in online games, has taken over one of Europe's biggest online game companies Gamigo from newspaper publisher Axelrod Springer AG. Gamigo publishes and operates free-to-play MMORPGs and browser-based games. Axelrod Springer AG purchased a majority stake in the German company four years ago. Now it wants to focus on the "non-gaming aspects of its digital business" so it has decided to unload its holdings in Gamigo.

Nintendo today lowered its full-year (fiscal year ending March 31, 2013) sales forecast, pointing to sluggish hardware and software sales and yen appreciation. the company also said that it expects to sell 5.5 million Wii U units by April of 2013. The Wii U is set to launch in November in Europe and North America. Previously the company expected to post profits of 20 billion yen ($250.7 million), but has lowered that number to 6 billion yen ($75.2 million).

Research firm Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz says that Medal of Honor: Warfighter is "likely to be a major disappointment." Set for release in the US, Europe and Australia this week, the game is set to face a tough shooter market that includes heavyweights like Halo 4 and Call of Duty Black Ops II. With that in mind, Creutz think that Warfighter will be a disappointment in terms of its sales numbers.

According to a Wall Street Journal report citing sources on close to the situation, News Corp. has enlisted the services of investment bank Allen & Co. to help sell off IGN and its network of video game and entertainment sites via an auction. This, the report claims, comes on the heels of a year of failed negotiations to sell the spun-out division for $100 million. Companies that showed some interest included Break Media and SAY Media, according to WSJ. News Corp.

In a lengthy interview with GamesIndustry International, executives from Zynga and Electronic Arts talk about how publicly opposing the Defense of Marriage Act has impacted their businesses. Earlier this year Chick-Fil-A came out publicly to say that it supported traditional marriage between a man and a woman. This set off a firestorm of protests and boycotts for the restaurant chain.

According to a Boston.com report, two auctions to sell of the tangible goods of the now bankrupt 38 Studios will allow online bidders to participate. Up for sale are the company's computers, office equipment, office furniture and more. Sorry, there are no game assets or intellectual property to bid on...

Here's an entry in the epilogue for OnLive - or at least what used to be OnLive - before it was sold to a holding company owned by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Gary Lauder. According to a report in the Mercury News, the cloud-based gaming service was sold to Lauder for a little under $5 million USD. Lauder reportedly paid $4.8 million for OnLive as part of an insolvency process this summer.

THQ announced this morning that it plans to close its Melbourne, Australia office - also known as THQ Australia - within a few months. THQ has already dismissed staff from its Melbourne office, according to multiple reports. The company will instead distribute its products within the region through All Interactive Entertainment (AIE).

Another key executive has left Zynga this week, joining what seems like a large scale exodus of talent from the social game developer and publisher. The latest to leave the company is Laurence Toney, the former general manager of Zynga Poker. Publication AllThingsD confirmed the departure, which happened yesterday. The publication was tipped off by a change in Toney's LinkedIn profile.

On the heels of Zynga lowering its outlook for the third-quarter and several research firms downgrading its stock, there's even more bad news for the publicly-traded social game developer and publisher. According to this GamesBeat report, Omgpop founders and Words With Friends co-creators have left Zynga. Paul and David Bettner, the creators of the enormously successful Words With Friends game for mobile and Facebook and other Zynga With Friends titles, announced their departure.

Speaking to GamesIndustry International, EEDAR VP of Insights Jesse Divnich says that he thinks the social game publisher has fallen far enough in value that it could become an acquisition target for the right company.

"At a $1.7 billion market cap, a Zynga acquisition seems favorable for anyone looking to pick up 300 million pair of eyeballs every month," Divnich said. "I'd argue that Facebook could become a potential suitor for Zynga--of course I am not trying to spread any rumors; rather I am thinking out loud."

Polygon offers a mildly interesting and inspirational story about how some favorite pastimes - soccer and video games - are being used to teach kids in the African nation of Rwanda about the importance of financial literacy. The game, Financial Football, is now in schools across the country and is being sponsored by the generosity of credit card giant Visa.

Baird Equity Research has downgraded social game developer and publisher Zynga after the company said that it expected a massive loss in the third quarter that ended on September 30. The company said that it now expects to report a $90 - $150 million loss for quarter. Zynga blamed the new numbers on "weakness of certain games" and an impairment charge of $85 million to $95 million related to its purchase of Draw Something developer OMGPOP.

OnLive's newly appointed CEO Charles Jablonski says that the cloud-based game streaming service will undergo a "transition of size, scope and management" under his direction. Jablonski spoke at length about his plans to revive the company after it nearly collapsed in August. After the assets of the company were transferred to Lauder Partners, employees were fired, debts were written off and CEO Steve Perlman resigned.

Welcome to the platinum club, Resident Evil 6 and FIFA 13. According to word from Capcom, worldwide initial shipments of Resident Evil 6 have surpassed 4.5 million. This is the highest number of shipments for a single title, according to Capcom. The game was released on multiple platforms on October 2.

Following up on yesterday's accusation by an employee that social game developer Kixeye engaged in "institutional racism," four employees have been fired today. The accusations were made by an unnamed contractor who wrote a blog post under the name of Qu33riousity. He claimed yesterday that he was the victim of racial discrimination and has also seen it directed at others.

A new book written by an executive for other executives uses gaming as a way to make workplace teams stronger. The new book is called "ENTERPRISE GAMES: Using Game Mechanics to Build a Better Business" (O'Reilly Media, October 20212), and is written by Michael Hugos. According to the PR for the book, which you can find on Amazon, managers and executives can learn better ways to manage teams from virtual worlds and the type of behavior needed to survive in them.

Nexon Co., Ltd. announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all outstanding common shares of gloops, Inc., a mobile games developer that made its name by developing for DeNA’s Mobage platform in Japan. Nexon will pay 36.5 billion yen in cash.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Sony Computer Entertainment UK boss Fergal Gara told the publication that gamers effectively killed off 3D gaming, because they voted with their pocketbooks.

The state of Rhode Island is auctioning off the remaining physical assets of 38 Studios including its computers, office furniture, audio equipment, consoles, televisions, conference call equipment, office telephones, security equipment and more. The assets are being sold off by auction site SJ Corio Company. The assets will be sold off in two different auctions: one to take place in Rhode Island on October 12 and another on October 23 in Maryland.

Kickstarter has added new rules that the crowdfunding company hopes will strengthen the relationship between project creators and those that back them. In a post on Kickstarter's blog this morning, the Kickstarter team detailed changes that they hope will address the widespread concern that many Kickstarter backers think they are purchasing a finished product rather than funding its further development.