Report: Zynga Recruits JamLegend Team As Developer Closes

FooBrew, the start-up best known for creating online music game JamLegend, announced its closure yesterday, but social game developer Zynga has absorbed the studio's team in a talent acquisition. FooBrew was founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco. Its flagship JamLegend product offered a Guitar Hero-style experience, except users could play through their browsers and upload/play their own MP3s (free accounts could upload only a few, while subscribers could upload more custom tracks). The developer revealed in a blog post that after attracting some two million users, it is shutting down JamLegend on April 29 to "move on to new ventures". It has already stopped accepting new registrations and subscriptions/extensions, and is offering refunds to some VIP members and players with leftover JamCash. Though the social game company hasn't released a comment on the arrangement, Zynga has added FooBrew's team to its worldwide work force of more than 1500 employees, according to a report from TechCrunch. This is the developer's twelfth studio or talent acquisition in the past eleven months. Zynga's other recent purchases include Beijing's XPD, Austin's Challenge Games, Tokyo's Unoh Games, Boston's Conduit Labs and Floodgate Entertainment, Frankfurt's Dextrose AG, Dallas' Bonfire Studios, McKinney's (Texas) Newtoy Inc., Redwood City's Flock, New York City's Area/Code, and team members from Dallas' MarketZero.