Possibly trying to hide the grim news by announcing it during Apple’s event, we’ve just independently confirmed that Zynga has shut down its Boston office and laid off 2/3s of the employees in its Austin office, including cuts to The Ville and Bingo teams. We’ve now confirmed the initial report from Justin Maxwell. We’ve also just heard Zynga may have an all-hands meeting this afternoon.

We’ve tried to get in touch with our contacts at Zynga, but haven’t heard back yet. We hope to have some official response soon. We have more stories from former employees here.

John Gruber put it nicely:

Apple Events are the new late Friday afternoons: the remote desert where you bury bad news.