Japanese mobile-social gaming juggernaut GREE recently laid off around 30 employees from its San Francisco office, according to GameIndustry International.

“We have recently aligned GREE’s U.S. studio to focus on creating the next generation of mobile social games,” said Anil Dharni, chief operating officer of GREE, in an official statement. “This shift in focus has been clearly demonstrated by the success and growth of our games. As part of ensuring that we are operating as efficiently as possible, we have made the difficult decision to reduce our work force. The employees leaving today have made great contributions to our success and we wish them all the best.”

In December 2012, GREE restructured its company, letting go 25 people, mostly from GREE’s social networking platform OpenFeint team. GREE announced the closing of OpenFeint a month prior to the layoffs. GREE acquired OpenFeint in April 2011 for $104 million as part of the Japanese company’s efforts to expand into Western markets.

Stay tuned to Inside Mobile Apps for GREE’s Q3 2013 earnings tomorrow.

Mobile game developer and publisher Glu Mobile today reported total non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) smartphone revenues of $17.1 million for Q1 2013, falling by 7.6 percent from Q4 2012′s $18.5 million, and by 1.7 percent from Q1 2012′s $17.4 million. iOS and Android accounted for 91 percent of Glu’s smartphone revenue, marginally down from 92 percent in Q4 2012.

Glu also cut staff yesterday in an effort to reduce the number of its development studio teams and eliminate certain research and development positions. The reduction in staff was equivalent to circa 12 percent of this year’s starting headcount of 564 employees. Glu also made this decision to enable it to hire additional monetization, live operations, server technology, user experience and product management personnel to support Glu’s transition to becoming a games-as-a-service (GaaS) company. Glu plans to bring headcount up to 580 by year’s end. Restructuring will complete no later than June 30, 2013. Glu did just hire Chris Arkhavan as president of publishing, who is focusing on growing advertising revenues, increasing direct marketing efficiencies and overseeing third-party publishing.

“Our goal is to shift headcount out of raw studio team volume and into our GaaS functions,” says Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile, in today’s earnings call.

The company’s total revenue for the first quarter of 2013 was $19.0 million, down 12 percent from $21.6 million in Q1 2012, and fell 8.7 percent quarter-over-quarter from total revenue of $20.8 million in Q4 2012. Non-GAAP operating loss was $2.2 million in Q1 2013 compared to Q1 2012′s $23,000 and Q4 2012′s $2.5 million. Glu’s non-GAAP net loss was $2.3 million in Q1 2013, resulting in a non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) loss of $0.03.

“I’m pleased with the moentization progress we made in Q1 and the steps we are taking to maintain this momentum,” de Masi says.

The San Francisco-headquartered game studio released seven freemium games in Q1 — Dragon Storm, Stardom: Hollywood, Gun Bros 2, Small City, Samurai vs. Zombies Defense 2, Heroes of Destiny, and Frontline Commando: D-Day. Titles released in Q1 2013 accounted for 16 percent ($2.66 million) of non-GAAP smartphone revenue this past quarter. Glu now plans to launch 12 first-party titles in 2013, with five already out. In March, Glu, in partnership with mobile gambling service Probability PLC, launched its first real-money game title Samurai vs. Zombies Defense Slots for the web in the U.K. Glu also announced today’s launch of another slots game in partnership with Probability with Contract Killer Slots in the U.K. Lastly, Glu began development on a Glu-IP-branded mobile casino suites game, which is expected to launch in the U.K. by Q3 2013.

Daily active users (DAU) rose from 3.5 million in Q4 2012 to 3.9 million in Q1 2013. Monthly active users (MAU) also increased, moving from 34.8 million in Q4 2012 to 40.1 million in Q1 2013.

In Q1 2013, Glu’s average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) was 6.4 cents, down from 6.7 cents in Q4 2012. The average for the percentage of MAU converting to paid users stood still at 0.7 percent. Stardom: The A List once again had the highest ARPDAU at 8.3 cents, although that figure fell from 9.1 cents in Q4 2012. The female-focused game also had the greatest conversation rate, converting 1.2 percent of MAU to paid users. Contract Killer 2 led all Glu titles again as the game with the most DAU, with 292,000 DAU. Heroes of Destiny and Dragon Storm, two Q1 2013 releases, broke Glu’s own ARPDAU records. As for Glu’s third-party publishing efforts, the game house plans to launch six titles globally by December 2013.

Glu’s most lucrative title for Q1 2013 was Eternity Warriors 2, which generated $2.1 million in non-GAAP revenue. Another notable title was Contract Killer 2, which raked in $1.8 million.

For Q2 2013, Glu estimates non-GAAP smartphone revenue between $15.2 million and $16.2 million. Glu now predicts between $80 million and $84 million in smartphone revenue for the 2013 fiscal year, down from the company’s prediction of $84 million to $88 million it provided in the Q4 2012 earnings release. As of March 31, 2013, Glu finished the quarter with a cash balance of $21.2 million and no debt.

Glu’s stock price dipped 7 cents after the release of its earnings report to $3.01 per share, with a market cap of $200.5 million. In after hours trading, the stock dropped even more to $2.90.

Mobile-social gaming giant GREE announced a restructuring yesterday that will see part of the platform team moving from San Francisco back to its headquarters in Tokyo, with 25 people losing their jobs in the process, reported TechCrunch. GREE also created two new organizations in an effort to consolidate, which includes a publishing and partnerships team focusing on second and third-party studios and a growth and revenue team focusing on first and second-party games.

In GREE’s Q1 2013 quarterly results, the company’s net profit in Q1 2013 fell 26.3 percent quarter-over-quarter. The Japanese giant’s profit were hamstrung by the high costs of international expansion and the kompu gacha ban by Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency. Kompu gacha is a practice that heavily incentivized the purchase of random virtual goods.

According to TechCrunch, most of the layoffs hit GREE’s social networking platform OpenFeint, which it recently announced it will shut down by Dec. 14. GREE first acquired OpenFeint in April 2011 for $104 million, with the hopes to further break into the U.S. market.

Mobile game developer and publisher Glu Mobile announced today that it has cut 25 percent of its staff from the Kirkland, Wash. office and five percent from the San Francisco office as well as shut down its Sao Paulo office to concentrate resources in Glu Mobile’s six other offices.

Glu Mobile president of studios Matt Ricchetti will also be changing roles and heading up its Kirkland, Wash. office (Griptonite Games). Glu Mobile said in its Q3 2012 earnings call that it will be holding total R&D investment steady between 2012 and 2013, so it can rebalance its R&D function worldwide. The changes are said to increase the company’s monetization oversight.

This isn’t the first time Glu has restructured. Back in Aug. 2011, Glu Mobile let go several key executives including vice president of marketing Michael Breslin, chief creative office Giancarlo Mori and Sarah Thompson, who ran its partnership program.

Electronic Arts is closing its in-house developer PopCap’s Dublin office.

The shut down of the Dublin office results in 96 people losing their jobs. PopCap associate producer JP Vaughan confirmed the closure in a tweet this morning. According to Vaughan’s LinkedIn profile, PopCap Dublin was primarily responsible for working on the company’s mobile properties. His work experience lists includes working on iOS updates for Plants vs Zombies, Bejeweled and Peggle, the Android versions of Plants vs Zombies and Peggle, various Java games and an unreleased social title.

Last month, PopCap let go 50 employees across its North American branches and was performing an “exploratory consultation” to figure out whether the company could maintain its Dublin studio.

A statement sent to Inside Mobile Apps by a PopCap spokesperson read that the consultation period completed, resulting in PopCap deciding to close its Dublin office.

PopCap’s statement also read that the company has provided outplacement support for many of the employees, offering employment in other parts PopCap, at EA or new opportunities with technology partners in Ireland.

Although EA is cutting staff at PopCap, EA had recently announced its expansion to its European Customer Experience Center in Galway, Ireland, adding 300 new jobs with help from the Irish government’s Industrial Development Authority.

PopCap opened its international studio based in Dublin in early 2006.

The closure today happened only a year after EA acquired the casual games developer for $750 million.

Today, social and mobile game company 6waves cut its staff even further here in the U.S., Inside Social Games has learned.

Six members of the U.S. team were let go today from departments including product management and user acquisition. According to our source, Associate Director, Products Joshua Burns (who was with the company since Jan. 2011) was part of the group cut. Our source also says SVP of Publishing Jim Ying is being phased out over an undisclosed period of time. Reportedly, seven full-time employees are still working out of the San Francisco.

Our source says the decision was a financial one, due to “wrong turns being made,” with the company’s new business plan.

Following a lawsuit from developer Spryfox over an iOS clone of Triple Town, 6waves went through a massive staff shake-up earlier this year when it cut the Lolapps side of its company and was shifting its focus away from development towards social and mobile publishing. The company then re-branded and unveiled some fairly high-profile projects working with big names like Nexon to produce titles like The Grins Tale and Cloudstone on Facebook, as well as Brainz’s Vampire Season, Harebrained Schemes’s Strikefleet Omega and East Side Games’s Ruby Skies on mobile platforms.

Whether or not there have been any layoffs at 6waves’s international offices hasn’t been confirmed, but we’ve reached out to 6waves for comment.

Developing.

In a document filed with the Securities an Exchange Commission, Google said its cellphone manufacturer Motorola Mobility will eliminate 4,000 jobs — or 20 percent of its workforce. Two-thirds of the layoffs are set to occur outside of the U.S.

The document also said that Motorola plans to close or consolidate about one-third of its 90 facilities and simplify its mobile product portfolio, shifting the emphasis from feature phones to more innovative and profitable devices.

The cuts are meant to return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability after it lost money in 14 of the last 16 quarters.

Google expects to incur a severance-related charge of no greater than $275 million that will be largely recognized in the third quarter, with remaining severance-related costs recognized by the end of 2012.

Almost exactly a year ago Google agreed to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, its biggest acquisition to date.

German online game publisher Bigpoint is closing its mobile division. The company confirmed the news with GamesIndustry International today, revealing the move will see 29 employees laid off and the majority of the company’s 10 upcoming mobile projects cancelled.

The news is surprising, given the speed at which many other online game developers and publishers like Switzerland’s Miniclip and fellow Germans Innogames are moving their resources into mobile gaming.

In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz said: “I’m a big believer in mobile, it’s going to change many things in the games industry. But I also think it’s not the right time at the moment to be in this market because to generate revenues in this market is very tough.”

According to a press release distributed today, the Bigpoint will adopt a new mobile strategy that will see it work with external studios, rather than in-house developers.

Bigpoint accompanied the news with a significant executive reorganization, billed as a way to increase focus on the company’s core capabilities — game development and international distribution. Former Ringier CEO Christian Unger has been appointed interm COO. Khaled Heliou joins as the company as Chief Games Officer. Existing Bigpoint employees Claire Davenport and Tim Weickert received promotions, taking on respective new roles as the company’s Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Technical Officer.