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Zynga to close Oxford offices

Social gaming company hopes to relocate staff to Brighton, London after winding down NaturalMotion middleware business

Zynga is looking to shut down its Oxford offices. Originally the headquarters of NaturalMotion, the Oxford site has been part of Zynga since the social gaming giant acquired the developer of CSR Racing in 2014.

"Over the last year, we've been narrowing our focus and orienting our NaturalMotion team around strategic priorities we believe will drive the studio's next phase of growth," the company said in a statement. "As part of that work, in Q2 we wound down our 3rd party licensing and middleware businesses in Oxford, and today, after further review of that location, we're announcing a proposal to close our Oxford office.

"We're constantly evaluating our business and exploring ways to concentrate our teams and better support our forever franchises and new IP. Much of the work done in our Oxford office currently supports products in development in our Brighton and London locations, so we see an opportunity to redeploy and increase our talent in those studios. We believe that by relocating our teams we can further invest in CSR2, Dawn of Titians and the new Action Strategy titles NaturalMotion has in development."

Zynga currently employs about 50 people at its Oxford location.