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Electronic Arts Sues Zynga for Allegedly Ripping Off 'Sims Social' Game

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News Posted: Sat, Aug 4 2012 9:28 AM
Game developer Zynga has made a fortune in part by altering existing game concepts into their own creations, such as Words With Friends (an obvious take on Scrabble, with a social twist and other elements that are Zynga's own). As far as Electronic Arts is concerned, however, Zynga went too far with The Ville, which EA claims infringes its Facebook game The Sims Social.

"Zynga's design choices, animations, visual arrangements, and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from The Sims Social," said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of EA's Maxis label.

Zynga The Ville

From Zynga's legal vantage point, EA is off its rocker on this one. Zynga claims The Ville is just another game in its Ville franchise, and that the lawsuit "clearly demonstrates [EA's] lack of understanding of basic copyright principles." Zynga also called the timing suspect, throwing it out there that EA's recently launched "SimCity Social bears an uncanny resemblance to Zynga's CityVille."

Zynga is used to defending against copyright claims. Earlier this year, the developers at NimbleBit accused Zynga of ripping off its Tiny Tower game with Dream Heights.
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InsideSin replied on Sat, Aug 4 2012 9:48 AM

I wish Zynga went bankrupt. They've had a known history of ripping ideas off other developers leaving us with lack-luster, mediocre games which are no better or worse than the original they ripped off of. Not to mention that they hurt the developers that actually try to make quality, original titles. Pathetic.

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karanm replied on Sat, Aug 4 2012 11:41 PM

I seriously dislike Zynga because of their business practices, I don't have any Zynga games and make it a point not to use anything associated with this leach of a company.

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AKnudson replied on Sun, Aug 5 2012 11:22 AM

Does it really matter that much? Zynga is a sub par video game developer, them producing a game would be like Shasta imitating coke. it happens and few people buy it.

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CDeeter replied on Sun, Aug 5 2012 12:08 PM

Shasta lol, haven't heard of them in years!

Hopefully the same thing will be said about Zynga.

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rapid1 replied on Sun, Aug 5 2012 12:36 PM

I agree with InsideSin here. Of course Facebook is there main if not only real platform so there limited to a degree by that. The User pool from Facebook is humongous. Either way I general tend to like things by other developers when I do play Facebook games.

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rapid1 replied on Mon, Aug 6 2012 10:05 AM

"Shasta imitating coke" This is not the same thing at all, Zinga is the largest developer on Facebook, which is then the largest social portal on the web period right now. So in the end Zinga probably had more growth than then PC gaming market did in the last 6 months because probably 60% of the users on Facebook have used one of there App/games if not more, and several play 3 or more!

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LLeCompte replied on Mon, Aug 6 2012 11:02 AM

Scumbag is suing a scumbag. I find it very funny.

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