As big of a statement as,”EA Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Zynga” is, are people really surprised? Let me bring you up to speed, EA has a Facebook game called, “The Sims Social” which launched this time last year. June 2012 saw Zynga release,”The Ville”, which to call it similar is like saying 7-up and Sprite are kind of in the same realm of taste. Let’s just say there were some noticeable direct ripoffs similarities between the two.
Huh. Looks kinda the same. Maxis also feels the same way, and that is why they have filed a lawsuit saying that Zynga “copied and misappropriated the original and distinctive expressive elements of The Sims Social in a violation of U.S. copyright laws.” It’s not just about looks only however. Animation of characters, design and the like all look unmistakably like Maxis’s game, which has prompted the game company to file suit in the first place. Now this is not the first time Zynga has had their hand in other people’s cookie jars so to speak. Zynga has two other Facebook games called,”Dream Heights, and,”Zynga Bingo” both which as you can see below are copycats of NimbleBit’s “Tiny Tower” and Buffalo Studios’s,”Bingo Blitz” respectively.
It will be interesting,a)if this ever goes to court, and b) what the ramifications are should there be a ruling on this. Games traditionally have always cherry-picked features from games, but it would seem that for a big company such as Zynga, they may be hit extra hard based on the fact that they are operating on a social networking site and they are seemingly just copy and pasting their products. This opens up the conversation that needs to happen which is,”At what point do similar games become completely blatant ripoffs?” Please email me kenny@levelsave.com or post your thoughts in the comment threads below.
