This news will tell Players why the Zynga made the decision to fire 18% of its workforce and what they mean for its future:

Those annoying Facebook notes asking you to help harvest Grandma’s virtual turnips may be coming to an end -- and that might be a good thing.

Gaming developer Zynga, known for its immensely popular social network games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars, recently laid off 18 percent of its workforce, or 520 workers -- another sign of decline for the once unstoppable Goliath of the casual gaming industry, according to Michael Fahey, social and mobile gaming editor for Kotaku.

In the past twelve months, Zynga Inc has struggled with a contracting player base, a deflated stock price and waves of layoffs. Now it is coming to terms with downsized ambitions.

As Chief Executive Mark Pincus, 47, leads the online games developer he founded in 2007 through perhaps the most crucial year of his tenure, he is pushing to restore revenues by doubling down on "FarmVille," the franchise that took Facebook users by storm four years ago and launched Zynga to stardom.