The axe began to fall last week as reports that Zynga is cutting 364 jobs surfaced.

Now according to a report from Eurogamer, the cuts are being felt at UK subsidiary NaturalMotion. 

Unidentified sources said that NaturalMotion is making staff redundant at its quality assurance department in Oxford, after the studio’s founder Torstein Reil allegedly explained it will now be using outsourced zero-hour contracts.

Lean operation

With a third of the company’s QA employees having been laid off, there are apparently two thirds left standing who will now work on the upcoming CSR Racing 2 and Dawn of Titans, which recently entered soft launch.

Clumsy Ninja, My Horse, CSR Racing, and CSR Classics are long-launched games whose QA is more predictable. These titles therefore are being sent off to an outsourcer.

Zynga has struggled in recent years to make the jump from Farmville on Facebook into the mobile arena.

Its recently announced $100 million cost reduction program will lead to 18 percent of its workforce losing their jobs as the firm attempts to stabilise its position in the market.